Operation Baldhead
by trattoretrattore18
Summary: Hiccup's attempt to show Berk that they should befriend dragons works. A little bit. As these are trying times for Berk, they will do anything that can help them in the raids. Even if it means using dragons as weapons. Thank you for your feedback, positive or negative.
1. Chapter 1: Fire

**Th****is story can also be found on wattpad. I wrote it in both platforms, so please don't accuse someone of plagiarism.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own any of the themes or characters**

**Also, thanks a lot to @jojojournal (instagram) for the cover photo, go watch their content.**

It was a cold march night. There was a thick layer of snow over the village that would probably not be gone for several months. I woke up to the smell burning by someone screaming at the top of their lugns.

-DRAGONS!!!

This was what I had been waiting for. I jumped out of bed, and made my way to gobber's hut, where I had hidden my weapon. It wasn't as easy is as it sounds though, as the dragons where shooting down fireballs everywhere. I then heard a terrifying whistle, followed by a blue and purple explosion on one of our firing platforms, sending snow in all directions. Seconds later, a deadly nadder landed nearby, took a large cod basket with is razor-sharp teeth and was about to fly away when Stoick, my dad, swinged his axe at it, leaving a large wound on it's nose. The thief was then forced to drop the basket and run for it's life, with blood streaming down it's head.

When I reached the hut I started rolling outside the cannon, wich I had been building for months now. Everybody said things like "you'll just be killed. " and "you won't do good even if they used you as projectile", I had heard them all. Well, today I was going to prove all of them wrong.

I wouldn't just kill a dragon, but an extremely dangerous one as well: the night fury, that had destotroyed one of our defences minutes ago. Nobody knew what it looked like, as it's was pitch black and invisible in the night sky. If a viking could bring down one, he would be seen as the new hero. Thanks to months of planning, today I was going to become that viking.

I rolled the bola launcher out of the hut, and found out that wheels don't work too well in thick snow. Despite this, I got it to another firing platform and armed the weapon. After many iterations, the device was finally ready to launch it's projectile, a metal net held open by three spinning metal spikes, straight at one of these monsters, propelled by two large steel springs. I had also attached small metal claws to the net to make it harder to remove. A simple spear would have been much easier to launch, but I thought that it would probably just leave a small hole in the night fury's wings. The net would almost certainly down it.

I heard a second explosion, just meters away, sending a few snowflakes towards me. Immediately I looked up, where there I could see a starless part of the night sky. After aiming the bola, I noticed that the starless patch was moving further and further away, towards the ocean. It was now or never. I pulled the trigger. Seconds later I heard powerful roar confirming that I had hit the night fury.


	2. Chapter 2: Swim

Scarnose started flying back, still in shock from the wound. I wanted to stay with him, but getting food for the Red Death was the priority. I turned to Armpit, a monstruos nightmare.

\- Can you cover me while I get something?

\- I'll attack the tower over the pastures, so that you can take the sheeps unnoticed. Can you take one for me and Scarnose as well?

She looked dubious, but accepted. There wasn't really any other opition.

\- Three is a lot, but I will try. She answered.

\- Let's do this.

I flew above the tower, hidden in the night. Afterwards, I dived downwards, feeling the cold air flowing against my wings. The humans on the tower couldn't see me, but they still jumped off it when hearing the whistle I made. At the last moment, I fired a plasma blast at it and pulled up to avoid hitting the ground, while Armpit landed in the pastures hidden in the chaos. I then flew away as fast as possible like I had done a million times before. The plasma blast revealed my position and I wanted to dissapear again as fast as possible. But something hit me.

I felt an immense pain in my tail and right leg, and let out a roar in desperation. As I was checking what had happened, I noticed I was losing control of my flying, and soon I started to plummet against the ocean. As much as I tried to pull out of the dive it seemed like if my tail wasnt working. At this point, I was filled to the brim with adrenaline, and with only one thing on my mind: survival.

I splashed in the freezing water and immediately tried to take off again, while something cut deeper into my leg. I managed to get myself a couple meters in the air, only to fall back just as quickly. After a few more tries I realised flying was not an option. Although I was never much of a swimmer, I'd have to manage the kilometre between me and the closest beach.

It wasn't easy, as I couldn't move two legs for some reason, but in the end I managed to keep moving forwards using the wings for stability. All this time, I forced myself not too think too much about what would happen next, or why I couldn't fly anymore. By the time I reached the beach, that was covered by a layer of snow, I was freezing and almost exhausted.

Somehow, I managed to crawl a couple of meters on it, then stopped to examine what happened. It was only now that I saw that there was a strange net over my body, with two, no three large spikes on it. One had got stuck in my leg, and caused the pain there. The cut was deep, I had probably made it worse by trying to take off. When I looked at my tail I was horrified. The entire left winglet was gone, except for a small part of the front, from where there was still streaming deep red blood on the snow. I would probably never be able to fly again.

I tried to get out of the net, but hundreds of small claws on it made it almost impossibble. I desperately looked around for anything that could help, and came to the realizaton this was the vikings' island. I tried to calm myself down and access my situation, wich didnt help much: I was probably going to get killed by one of these vikings, and even if that wouldn't happen my right leg could get infected and kill me, or I could simply starve to death, as there was no way I would catch anything without flying. So, yeah. I was pretty much utterly fucked.

As my adrenaline wared off I became more and more aware off the pain in the tail, and of how tired I was. The cold bath had exhausted all my energy and what was left had flowed out of the leg and tail. I drifred into sleepless slumber.


	3. Chapter 3: Inside

I saw a second explosion in the corner of the eye. That monster was persistent, but I had finally figured out it's strategy. It attacked our defences, and another dragon would come in and steal our precious food while our warriors took cover wherever they could find. Knowing this I ran towards the explosion, and saw a monstrous nightmare landning on a nearby pasture, and started taking sheeps in it's mouth. By the time I came close it had taken three. I raised my axe and prepared to srike. With all that food in it's mouth it had trouble taking off, so when the dragon saw me it started running away toward one of our firing platforms, instead of attempting flight.

However there was someone in front of it, who almost gave me a heart attack when i recognised him: my son Hiccup, who was now looking at the sky, and didn't notice the dragon closing in on him. I yelled, still running towards the scene.

He turned around and tried to run away when he saw the monster, only to slip on the snow and fall on the ground. The dragon was now opening it's mouth and preparing to turn my son into ashes. On the last moment, I swinged my axe and killed the monstrous nightmare with a clean cut on the neck, leaving it's head stuck with a surprised expression.

\- Hiccup, go inside, now!

I said to firmly to him. While walking away, he accidentally knocked over one of the support ropes that held up the tower. It collapsed seconds afterwards, making the nightmare's head and what looked like a wooden cannon plummet into the water. I pretended not to have seen it.

This time we had defended well. We had suffered no casualties, and managed to kill not only the monstrous nightmare, but a gronkle as well. I, however, was worried what had happened to Hiccup. How could you be so stupid? I went into our hut, decided to make him stop trying to kill dragons, at least until he was able to defend himself.

\- What the hell were you thinking?!

\- I killed a night fury dad. You should thank me.

\- And you expect me to believe that?

\- Yeah, it's true.

He was starting to get on my nerves.

\- I'll tell you facts instead. You were outside, on a firing platform, during a dragon raid, with a night fury that was targeting defences, and not even aware enough to notice a monstrous nightmare a meter behind you because you were too busy admiring the night sky!! And you want me to believe that you killed a night fury!!

I was screaming now and realised my mistake. Hiccup was on the verge of crying.

\- I'm sorry son. I understand that you want to be a good viking, everyone does. I just don't want you to end up like Puntbone, Baldhead, your mother Valka, or another one of these hundreds of vikings that we lost due to these damned dragons. And it seems like you are trying your best to become exactly like one of them.

\- Yes dad. But I did kill it. It plunged into the ocean, I saw it.

\- Come on, don't be a liar as well. That is _litterally_ what every viking who was looking for attention would say.

Hiccup closed his eyes then opened them again, I could see he was angry. Then he simply said

\- Fine.

And walked back to his room.


	4. Chapter 4: Mercy

Finally the bleeding had stopped, but it still hurted a lot. If that axe struck just a little deeper I would be gone. Toothless had said he was going to take something for me, so that I didn't show up to the Red Death empty handed. Because of that I had started flying back before the others, taking my time and trying to take care of the wound. The last thing I needed was an infection. I flew calmly over the sea, feeling the cold breeze against my wings. Because of how slow I was, several dragons catched up to me, carrying all kinds of different foods from the village. However, I couldn't see any trace of Toothless. I searched for Armpit to ask her what had happened, only to find out that she was missing too.

At this point, I became nervous. I decided to fly back to the village, hoping to find them, or at least something. As it's silhouette came into view, I forced myself to remain cautious. A wounded deadly nadder alone next to hundreds of humans wasn't a good combination. I saw a broken firing platform, and was horrified to see Armpit's body there, with the head cut off. A small river of blood came from her neck onto the snow. My friend, Armpit was dead, and I hadn't seen any trace of Toothless.

I wanted too keep searching for him but I knew I had to go back, as the Red Death wasn't too keen to dragons escaping her rule. In the nest there was rumour of a small terrible terror who had had enough, and flew for weeks to get back to his family, thinking that the queen didn't have time to search and kill someone as small as him. Unluckily for him, the queen had followed him all the way, and killed not only him, but his mate and hatchlings as well with a single fire stream, before returning to the nest. Although it was probably a myth, the message was clear: escape equals death. Since I hadn't managed to get any food I only had one option left. I would have to beg for mercy.

When I entered the cavern, everybody's eyes turned towards me, like if I was about to perform some kind of holy ritual. I had thought about what to say on the way back, and decided to keep it simple. I could find excuses for not having brought anything, but I didn't want to annoy her. I was very aware that this could be the last thing I ever said. I flew over the Red Deaths mouth, but instead of dropping the food like she expected, I filled my lugns and said as calmly as I could:

\- I don't have any food.

\- You know what happens if you skip your work. Any last world's?

At this point, I was so nervous that sweat dripped of my wings onto the Red Death's nose. I could hear she was enjoying herself.

\- Please don't kill me. I was injured and flew back, Toothless had promised me to bring me something I could give you, but he hasn't shown up.

At this point, my voice was almost broken. At any moment I could end up as a snack. I had to scream to myself to keep calm. If I panicked, death was almost certain.

\- Instead, he has escaped with his friend Armpit hasn't he? And why aren't you with them?

\- Red Death, nobody would escape from you. Armpit hasn't come back because she is dead, I have seen her body at the village. As for Toothless, I haven't seem him since the raid, but he isn't stupid enough to attempt to escape. He has probably drowned, otherwise I would have seen him.

There was a pause for a moment. The queen now seemed disappointed, probably because she wanted to know what I tasted like. Then she said:

\- We've already lost three dragons today, Mudface, Toothless and Armpit, let's not lose a fourth one. Go, Scarnose.

I flew back to my resting spot in the mountain. Usually, they would have been next to me. In just a few hours I had lost my only friends in this nest, and I started crying. Other dragons could hear, but I didn't care. I wanted to see Toothless again. I wanted to leave this fucking hole. And neither of these things was likely.


	5. Chapter 5: Dagger

"If I just could find it, all my problems would be gone", I thought to myself. It was a peaceful night, and I should've been sleeping, but I couldn't stop thinking about the night fury I had shot down two days ago. All that I had seen was a white splash on the black ocean, before that monstrous nightmare gave me other things to worry about. Pheraps i could find it underwater, the water wasn't so deep over there. However it was far too cold and dark to go diving in this season, and by summer probably only the skeleton would be left. Pheraps it had floated up to the surface, after all, if it could fly it probably was quite light. With a bit of luck, it could have drifted to the beach and was just waiting for me to find it and show it to the others. Pheraps I could find it.

I also realized something else. If this was true, any viking could find it and say that he had killed it, incuding Astrid or Snotlout, as both of which wanted to become chiefs, and to kill the most dangerous dragon of all would certainly help them. This meant that if the Dragon was on the beach... Not only I had to find it, _I_ had to find it. I decided that I would look for it first thing in the morning.

The air was chilly when I went outside, but with a warm fur coat it was not a problem. I knew that this quite be quite hard and even impossible, as Berk had almost a hundred kilometers of coastline and I wasn't even sure the thing was here. Therefore I was really surprised when a black, red and silver blob came into view in the first place I searched in. When I came close I could clearly see the shining metal of the net, the black scaly body, and two small deep red streams that left a strong contrast with the white snow, one of which went from it's tail. As I closed in to the body with triumphant steps I felt a mixture of pride and pure joy that I didn't get to experience often.

This feeling lasted about two seconds. A black ear-like antenna lifted on the monsters head, followed by it's eyelids that wide opened, revealing a pair of huge bright yellow eyes with a black square in the middle, staring right at me. We stood there staring at each other for what felt like ages. I was paralized and unable to move or even blink. It felt like if it was watching deep into my soul. Suddently, it turned it's head towards me and opened it's mouth, preparing to fire. Not wanting to become a Hiccup Flambé made me run up the beach towards a nearby tree and hide behind it. I prayed that this would save me from the fireblast, untill I realized that the dragon hadn't fired. I poked my head besides the tree and saw the night fury, still tangled in the net, that looked like if it was trying to spit whatever the plasma was made from, but failing. The squares on it's eyes started to change into slits as it became more and more scared.

A grin formed on to my lips. I took a step outside the protection of the tree and started walking towards the night fury. It repeatedly tried to blast me away, every attempt looking more and more desperate. After a while it gave up blasting me, and started to attempt getting out of the net instead. It rolled in all possible ways, that only resulted in more metal claws sticking into it's body and the blade into it's leg cutting even deeper, making fresh blood flow onto the snow. The dragon starded yelping more and more loudly, then it roared what was obviously a cry for help.

\- Who's the tough guy now?

I said. The night fury started shaking and yelping as response. I reached for the dagger under my coat and held it out in my hand, well visible for the monster to see. I could see the pure fear in it's eyes, that were now only thin slits. It opened it's mouth, which made me notice it was toothless, then closed it again.

\- You really think that I'm going to spare you just because you're watching me with big eyes?

The creature made what sounded like a nervous purr. I still felt a bit of pride, the net had worked perfectly. However, now I also felt a small weight on my shoulders. A small, but growing, part of me told me to leave this helpless creature to it's faith.

\- Please don't make this hard. You kill some of us, we kill some of you, then we meet in Valhallah and we celebrate together. I know that you would't hesitate if you had your fire back.

The knife flashed in the morning light as I held it above the dragon's neck. A small cut on the troat would kill with minimum suffering. I put my hand on the night fury's neck to feel where I should strike, and noticed it's heartbeat was slow. The dragon seemed much more calm now, it even closed it's eyes and made a gentle purr, as if it had finally accepted it's fate. My arms were ready to strike, I was one cut away from eternal fame and recognition. However, I didn't want to kill this thing, as much as i knew I should.

I stood there with the dagger in the air for what felt like ages, in reality it was probably around five minutes. I was only interrupted when I heard a raven call, also known as a signal. We used it to show we were near witouth adverting our presence to any enemies or dragons. In other words, someone was walking towards this place, probably after hearing the night fury's call. And towards me.

Something told me I wouldn't want to be here whenever that viking came, so I walked towards the forest and hid behind a tree. Then the world "Footprints" got in my mind, so I went back to the dragon, who was now looking at my with a less scared and more curious look, and erased the footprints that led up to the tree with the fur on my coat on the way back to

my hideout. Seconds after I was hidden again the viking appeared from the other side of the beach. Astrid.


	6. Chapter 6: Again

There were good news and bad news. The good news was that I was alive. For some reason, that human had spared me. I couldn't wrap my mind around why, so "humans are complicated" would have to do. Afterwards, the human had hidden behind some nearby trees, and for some reason removed the footprints, like if it didn't want to be tracked down by something. The bad news was that by now I was very weak. I hadn't eaten in days and had deep cuts because of the spikes. Because of that I was also out of acetylene, wich meant I couldn't fire. After some thinking, I decided the next step would be to make someone, pheraps even a human, make me get out of here.

I was so deep down in my thoughts that I was caught by surprise when I saw a large stick flying towards me. Instinctively I tried to blast it away. Obviously this didn't work and the stick fell down on my nose. Luckily it didn't hurt too much, but looking in the direction it came from I saw another human, this one slightly smaller than the previous, pheraps a female, that was staring at me like if I was a large pile of ham. Then I realized my fatal mistake. I was completely defenceless, but humans wouldn't go near me for fear of being blasted away. And I had just made it clear that my last defensive line was offline, essentually writing "Harmless pile of food, take for yourself" on my back. To make things better my gut told me that this human wouldn't be as friendly, and the fact that it was now running towards me with an axe over it's head confirmed it.

-Help!! Anyone hearing this help!

I roared. I looked straight into the eyes of the human, looking for any chance of persuading it, finding nothing. For the third time I tried to shake around and get out of the net, only to realizing how futile it was. I closed my eyes and squeezed them shut, hoping it would be a swift death. However, a familiar flapping sound made me open them again.

\- Hold on!

\- Scarnose! Do something, please!

He didn't bother to answer. Instead, he dove towards the ground, before pulling up again and blasted the human with his fire spray before landning next to me. The human, now only a couple of meters away from me, quickly jumped sideways and blocked the fire with it's shield. It then looked first at Scarnose, then at the forest up the beach, and finally at me before deciding to run towards the forest. Scarnose followed after, and fired some spikes from his tail towards it, only to be blocked by the shield again. The human then disappeared into the forest.

\- Let it go Scarnose, We've got other to think about.

\- You are capable of compassion?! What have they done to you?

At this point it was too much. All the fear, hunger and surprise had taken it's toll on my head, and when Scarnose, who probably believed I was dead, said that I burst into laughing.

\- Hahahaha, you had to say that!! You've lost half your nose but not your sense of humour!

He rolled on the beach, threw snow at me since I couldn't strike back and we laughed for a long time. I probably looked ridiculous, laughing while lying on my belly with the net still on me, but I didn't care. Then, out of the blue, I said:

\- Too bad Armpit isn't here. Where is she, don't you always fly together?

Suddently, Scarnose stopped laughing, and I got a bad feeling on my chest. When he opened his mouth again he spoke slowly, and each world seemed to be filled with pain.

\- You probably don't want to know.

\- What happened to her? Tell me!

I raised my voice suddently and made Scarnose fall back.

\- She died the same night you disappeared, beheaded. I saw her body.

\- Oh my...

I was speechless. Armpit was always so helpful and kind, and now she was gone, and I hadn't even got the chance the give a proper goodbye.

\- Don't worry Toothless. I'm going to make them pay, no, we are going to make them pay as soon as you're healed. They won't get off this lightly. Let me just get you out of the net and we'll start thinking of a way to strike back.

He then started to chew on the metal net, but it was hard, and it hurted when he moved the net like that.

\- Scarnose, please stop...

\- No, why should I?

\- Because it hurts when you try to chew it off...

He stopped for a split second, and slammed his wing onto my nose, before going back to the net.

\- Ow! What was for?!

\- You know what hurts? A spear down in your neck. Or me if you keep comlaining.

He said, not stopping for a moment what he was doing. I had to tell him.

\- I can't fly for fucks sake!!

He stopped, and after a few seconds I could see tears swelling into his eyes.

\- You can't fly? What's gonna happen to you?

\- Probably nothing good, but don't worry about me. You should go back to the nest now.

\- I'm not leaving you!! I'm not going to!

He said, now crying. He leant on my neck, and I could feel the thick scales soaked up in tears.

\- I'm talking to you as a friend, Scarnose. You have to go back to the nest now, otherwise the Red Death will come here, roast you to death, and eat me as a snack in the meantime, as I can't serve her anymore. For once, stop listening to your feelings and do what makes you survive. My days are counted whatever you do. Now go!

Scarnose kept crying for a few more seconds, then stood up again, dried his tears with the left wing and regurgitated what looked like a half digested deer in front of me.

\- I was hunting when I heard your call, so I flew here just in time to save you, and now you are telling me that you want to die in peace? I'm going back to the nest now, as you tell me, but you better stay alive, at all costs, or I'm going to to be VERY disappointed. Take this and survive.

Afterwards he flew back immediately, not giving me time to answer and not looking back. Somehow his words gave me hope. I decided that I was going to get trough this. I ate the deer and prepared myself to deal with whatever this island would throw at me.

This proved to be sooner than I expected. The human that had spared me before was running towards me from the forest. Had it seen the entire conversation? I watched the human from head to toe. It was small, but didn't have a wider chest like human females had. Therefore it was probably a young boy, pheraps around my age?

I growled at hum, making him take a step back in surprise. Then he said something that I couldn't understand, however by the tone and the humans eyes I understood the massage to be about "don't kill me, I won't kill you". It was hard to belive, but pheraps a human's help was what I needed to get out of this. I pointed to the the net with my nose, then to the human and said "take it off". He probably couldn't understand, but pheraps it got the message like I had.

He took out that dagger, and I growled at him. I was still weak, but this time I would be on my nerves. He said something else, like "I need this to take the net off". I knew this was true, as humans, especially young ones, were very weak withouth their tools. I growled "fine but I have an eye on you" as a response. Then he proceeded to take the net off using the knife. He was much gentler than Scarnose, but still worked nervously, like if he were in a time crunch. During this whole time I kept myself ready to jump on him at the minimum contact between the blade and my skin. I had no fire, at least for now, but I could still bite. To my surprise, this worked, and in only a few minutes the net was off.

The human then made a "follow me" sign. I depated if i should or not, but this human had been kind to me this whole time, so I decided to trust him. The wound in the leg still hurted and made it hard to walk, but it was nothing I couldn't manage. He led me to a small cave into the forest, and showed that I should enter it. After some thinking, I decided to obey, and walked inside. If nothing else, I was well hidden and gave me only one side to get attacked from. Afterwards he made a "stay here" gesture and left.

This was the first time since the night that I was shot that I got to have a proper look at the wounds. By now, the tail wound was clean and looked almost natural apart from the missing fin. The leg was a whole another story. It had been in contact with a dirty metal blade for two days, and reopening the bleeding by trying to get out of the net hadn't helped. It was clearly infected with a large grey spot and an awful smell. I felt slightly better now, so pheraps I could fire again and disinfect it? I gathered as much acetylene as I had in my throat, then fired straight at the leg from a few centimetres away. The blast was tiny compared with how much I usually fired, but it still burned like crazy, really really hot. I was about to let out a roar in pain, but managed to keep myself quiet by squeezing my mouth shut. I remembered Scarnose's words. I was gonna survive this.


	7. Chapter 7: Blackmail

\- So you want me to believe that you found a night fury, succesfully immobilized it by thorwing a net on it, but a single deadly nadder managed to stop you from killing the monster?

Stoick said, looking quite amused in the process. Gobber, right besides him, looked also entertained. My story wasn't completely true, but I wasn't going to let such an great opportunity go to waste.

\- I caught it by surprise, while the deadly nadder was in full-on-battle mode.

\- Yeah, Yeah. You really think you're the first kid to claim something like that? Just about everyone in this village has tried it, even Hiccup.

I was being compared to hiccup. This felt awful, but I had to show them.

\- All I'm asking you is to follow me two kilometers on the beach, how much does it cost you?

\- Listen Astrid. You'll be a great fighter when you grow up, please have some patience. Is it really necessary for you to lie?

This was the moment to throw out my triumph card. I took out the shield from behind the hut and showed it to them. The blue and white spikes caught their attention more than anything I had ever said until now.

\- If I'm lying, where did I get these things from?

Gobber picked one of them out of the shield, then held it out in the sun. It was becoming quite warm now.

\- Aye, these are real. I think our girl might be speaking the truth, Stoick.

He looked like if he were in deep thought. In reality nadder spikes weren't super hard to find, as they were one of the most common dragons in these raids, but hopefully it was enough to convince them.

\- Alright. Lead us to the place, you're coming with us Gobber.

He grabbed his axe and a pack of arrows, then we started walking. They still weren't fully convinced and walked what seemed incredibly slowly to me. I rubbed my hands against each other, to kill a night fury at only fifteen, that would surely bring status. I was a bit mad at myself for not killing it immediately, but that deadly nadder could have made quick work of me, now I was convinced I had made the right call.

When the beach came into view, I was petrified. It was completely barren. I quickly ran to the last place that dragon had been to see a shallow pit in the sand, but nothing more. This WAS the right place, but somehow it was just gone. I searched my memory for any clues but it didn't help. The night fury had been here, in a net and completely immobilized by it. I started looking around the beach for clues, but before I could find anything there were up to me, looking battle ready but somewhat doubtful at the same time.

\- So where is the night fury?

I stood there with no idea what to say. Under pressure I made what was probably a bad decision.

\- Haha you fell for my prank, just like I expected!

They didn't look surprised, it was obvious something like this had happened before.

\- What's wrong with today's youth Stoick? No matter how hard I squeeze my brain I can't seem to get an answer.

\- Veeery funny Astrid. I didn't really expect this from you, why?

This was the most embarrassed I had ever been in my life, but I had to continue.

\- Aw, come on, you should have seen the look on your faces! It took me months to get the spikes from all the raids, but it was so much worth it!

Stoick rolled his eyes, clearly dissaponted. He then made a sign to Gobber and they started walking back. I heard him say "There are times I agree with you Gobber" before they walked out of view. I was mad at myself for appearing like a fool and not killing the dragon when I had the chance. I looked around the beach for any trace of what could have happened, and caught a shadow hiding behind a tree in the corner of the eye.

Was that it? I squeezed onto my axe and focused my view on that spot, while adrenaline started filling up in my veins. "Looks like I'll have to deal with it myself". I started running towards the tree with the axe ready to strike, until I heard a voice.

\- Whoah, calm down!

Hiccup then walked besides the tree with his hand in front of him.

\- Oh, it's just you.

I said nonchalantly. I felt dissaponted, I would have enjoyed a fight right now.

\- Do you always charge like that at random people or is it just because you made yourself look so stupid in front of Stoick and Gobber?

\- Hey! Don't you dare tell anyone! Besides, there _was_ a dragon here! How could I have known it would just dissapear?

Why did he always have to be so annoying? I made sure he got the message by pointing the axe at him, thus pinning him to a nearby tree.

\- Yeah yeah, I won't tell. Happy?

I nodded in response, but a thought started to build in my mind. Hiccup had watched the scene, and pheraps had been standing there for a long time. That night fury couldn't fire and barely attempted to fight back, so there was no way that it could have got out of the net on it's own. Not witouth some help, and...

\- Did you get that night fury out of the net?

Once again I used my axe for making the message clearer. He was distracted, so my question (and the axe) caught him off guard.

\- What?! No? What night fury?!

There was a long pause between his words, hinting that he was hiding something.

\- Really? Because there's no way that it could have gotten out of it, it didn't even try when I charged at it!

\- I didn't even touch i

Time froze for a second. Hiccup had put his hands on his mouth, but I had heard enough. A smile formed on the corner of my lips.

\- So you did see it after all.

\- Alright, I saw it, but I did nothing more! Nothing!

He seemed scared now, like if he had realized a fatal mistake.

\- Or pheraps you understood that I was on my way to earn fame and glory, went up to the night fury once the nadder had left, and freed the monster since you're too much of a coward to kill it yourself!

A silence followed by an almost unnoticeable nod confirmed my theory.

\- You freed the most dangerous killer this world has ever seen! How stupid can you even be!

Hiccup stood there thinking a couple of seconds, then said.

\- Alright. Pheraps I did all of that. But let me ask you. What are you going to do about that? They won't believe a word you say after that embarrassment, and it's not like you can take a picture to show them as proof. The camera hasn't been invented yet Astrid.

This was a good question. However pheraps there was a solution.

\- No, but the bow and arrow has. You can't keep it hidden forever.

Hiccup was becoming pale, and I loved this.

\- How did you know it's still on the island?

\- I wasn't really sure but you just told me. Looks like your little friend isn't much for this world.

I cracked a small smile, and Hiccup started sweating like a wet sponge.

\- Please, don't hurt Toothless!

He had named the dragon? What was wrong with this boy!

\- Toothless? Cute name. In that case, looks like Toothless isn't much for this world.

I started walking back.

\- Please, I'll do anything!

This word made me stop.

\- Anything?

\- Yes, anything you want!

I turned around, looked at him dead on in the eyes, and said

\- Convince Stoick to make me chief.

\- Wait... Not like that, what am I supposed to say?! Dad, Astrid is better than me in every way so we should change the trehundred year laws so that a GIRL from ANOTHER FAMILY can get the throne because there is no hope for improvement for me?!

What was up with these antiquated rules anyway? Still smiling, I started to walk away calmly and said

\- Yeah, pretty much. Do that and little Toothless is safe.

I didn't get an answer, but I knew he would talk to Stoick. Feeling a great bit of pride, I walked away without looking back.


	8. Chapter 8: Sausages

What the hell had I gotten myself into?! I stood there, watching Astrid walk away, and with no idea what to do next. I didn't even care for the night fury, I just didn't want her to get the status. Killing that thing would have been so much better, but if I couldn't do it while the dragon was standing helplessly on the beach there was no way it would let itself die now. Also, where did "Toothless" come from? That name is worse than Snotlout's.

Still, I had to deal with this now. Wait for Toothless to fully recover and fly away? I would have to talk to dad while it became better, but afterwards it would be safe, and hopefully Stoick would soon forget. Pheraps help it to recover by bringing food? Seemed like a good plan. In the meantime, I would try to avoid Stoick and Astrid. I could only imagine how she would start to act If she managed to score the kill, I had to avoid this.

By the time I was back to the village it was late afternoon, and very warm for this month. I needed to get something for Toothless to eat before he lost all trust in me. I wasn't naive, the night fury could've kill me whenever it wanted to. Despite the wound on the leg, it walked almost normally, and with some effort it could have quickly jumped on me and enjoyed a free meal. However, it HADN'T. Probably it believed that it was fair to spare me like I had spared it, or it just wasn't hungry. Anyway, food would strengthen the "don't kill Hiccup" rule that the creature had.

When I arrived to the pantry I realized that I had no idea what that thing ate, except for whatever that nadder had regurgitated. It didn't have any teeth, at least as far I had seen, but "dragons love human flesh" was a common saying at the village. After a while I decided on some sausages, and started going all the way back when Stoick was suddently standing in front of me.

\- There you are. Where have you been all day?

\- Oh, you know, around the village...

\- Strange, I haven't seen you. Also why are you carrying those?

Out of nowhere, Astrid popped out behind a nearby hut and stated watching me. Of course she followed me.

\- Well, i skipped lunch so I thought of grabbing something before dinner.

With my eyes locked on Astrid I saw her taking her hand close to her throat and slicing, making it clear what she wanted.

\- Does that something include four kilos of sausages or have I missed something?

He looked to be in a good mood, and I hated myself for spoiling it. However, she was still staring, and there wasn't much of a choice.

\- Dad, you know Astrid?

I tried to make it sound natural, but this conversation was going to be extermly awkward no matter how hard I tried. He answered with a dubious "Yes?".

\- Don't you think that she is such a great fighter?

\- Yeah, for her age, but where are you going with this?

\- And so intelligent too, don't you think?

\- What are you trying to say?

Still listening quietly from her hideout, she gave me a stare that said "Astrid should be chief or that thing dies". Thor what this was awkward.

\- I think she would make a great chief.

I had said this, and Stoicks expression varied from surprise to disgust before landning on dissapoimtment mixed with sadness. My relation with him was already not perfect, and these worlds didn't help. While shaking his head he said

\- Well... that's not something we have to think of now.

And then quickly walked off, withouth saying a word. I hoped this would be the last time I had to do this.

Astrid stated laughing helplessly on the ground when I walked up to her.

\- Wow, I couldn't have done it better myself! And the tone of his voice... Hahahaha!!

\- You really think that this will help you?! The only thing that changed was that he hates me slightly more than before!

She took a big breath to stop herself from laughing. Then she stood up, looked at me straight in the eyes and said.

\- Yeah, it helps. Because you aren't so likely to make the next chief someone you hate, are you? And when you're out, I'm the obvious choice. The fact he's laughing in your face at the suggestion proves it.

\- You're an asshole.

\- And you're a puny, weak, stupid boy that doesn't deserve to rule this village. But since that makes you happy, Toothless will live, for now...

\- What do you mean by "FOR NOW"?! Do I have to do this shit again?!

\- No, you should kill the dragon. But since you're too much of a coward, yes.

I had to get out of here before I killed someone. I started walking towards the cave, saying

\- You'll pay for this.

She shouted "Doubt it!" as a response as I walked past her.

Walking to the forest helped me calm down. It was a beautiful evening with water dripping from the treetops, a light ocean breeze and surprisingly warm. By the time I arrived to the cave, I was much calmer. I had to remind myself to be careful. What felt like a familiar creature was a deadly monster until this morning. It was well hidden, with only the reflection from it's scales revealing it's position.

\- Are you awake?

Toothless purred gently, then slowly opened it's eyes. It was obvious it wanted to say "just a few more minutes".

\- How are ya?

When it saw me, it immediately widened it's eyes, jumped as far back as the cave allowed it and made a loud screeching noise.

\- Whoah calm down! It's just me!

The Dragon stood there frozen for a second, then calmed down again and relaxed. It panned around the cave and made "croo" sound I didn't understand.

\- You're safe, don't worry. No one else is here. Are you hungry?

I said holding the two sausages towards Toothless. Curious, the night fury pointed it's head towards them, and walked out of the cave towards. It sniffed a little and made another "croo". I realized that sausages were completely different from whatever the ate in nature, I should've chosen another food.

\- Fresh sheep sausages from the local cafeteria. What do you think?

\- Croo?

Wow, did I really have to do this? I took a large bite out of it and swallowed, exaggerating the movements to make this even clearer. Luckily I was hungry so it was not too hard, even though they were raw.

\- Food. You eat them E-A-T.

It opened it's empty mouth and closed in on me. A line of sharp rounded teeth emerged from the top and bottom jaw, and I pulled back in surprise.

\- Hey! Where do they come from?

"Toothless" stared at me blankly as an answer.

\- Okay, I guess it doesn't matter. Here.

The dragon took a tiny bite out of it and chewed intensly, looking like a food critic in the process. It then proceeded to swiftly swoop both sausages from my hands and seemingly swallowed them whole, all in less than a second.

\- I guess someone was hungry...

I chuckled. It had taken me by surprise. Toothless then proceeded to lay on it's side with the tail behind it's body and make a satisfied groan, before looking at me. Sitting down close to the dragon I examined it's body. It wasn't pitch black as I had believed at first, but had dark grey areas and shiny scales. The wound on it's leg looked much better now, hopefully it would heal soon. "Still, don't tell him who caused it" I told to myself. By curiosity I looked between it's back legs.

\- So you're a guy...

Toothless had seen where I was staring and quickly covered it with it's wing, then looked at me and made a sharp "croo!".

\- Sorry, sorry, I was just curious!

I said while looking away. He crooed another time, with the tone being "don't do that again". Afterwards, we both sat down for a few minutes. It was becoming dark, and soon it would be colder too. I started walking away.

\- Alright, bud, I have to go. Hopefully you will fly again soon, this place is dangerous for you, and I don't like Astrid's constant threats. Have a good one!

He answered with a small roar.

**I know this chapter isn't great, but I need it to keep the story going.**


	9. Chapter 9: Raid

He even brought me food? That boy made me more and more curious. Sparing is something you can do to someone you hate, but to help is a whole different story. That female viking would have killed me without thinking twice if it weren't for Scarnose, so why didn't he?

Still, if even a single viking could spare me, pheraps I could survive for a while. This meant I had to think long term. "pheraps you can fly now that you're better" came in my mind. I doubted it, but I sure as hell I was gonna try. Covered by the darkness, I walked up to a nearby over the water, ran as fast as I could, spread my wings and jumped into the sky. For a short while, it felt wonderful, with the cold winter air flowing around my body and pushing up from my wings. I had missed this feeling. However soon enough I lost control slipped right, and plummeted sideways into the dark, cold water. While I splashed around trying to get back to land I realized something. This was my home now.

To get rid of the cold from the bath I started walking. After all, if I was going to live here I had to learn to know this place and the night was the safest time for me to do so. I walked in the forest close to the coast for most of the night. The island was small but varied, with snow covered fields, dark forests and tall rocky cliffs. It had also had a few rivers that would probably be climbed by saumons in a few months. I remembered the days I was fishing with Scarnose and Armpit at rivers during saumon season. We stood there filling us up in the spring sun all day and didn't have to raid, just took a load of fish back to the nest. How much would I have given to be there? Right now the rivers and sea were almost empty, and we survived on small deers, rabbits, and the bodies of animals that had fallen victim to winter. Oh, what we found in the raids too, it wasn't only the Red Death who was hungry.

After a few hours I had almost completed the tour of the island, and reached the vikings village. Seeing its silhouette woke up weird feelings in me, as it usually meant danger, battle and death. This time, I wouldn't go in. Instead I climbed a nearby tree and watched the calm village sleeping, with only a few torches revealing someone was home. It looked so peaceful that it was hard to believe humans lived here.

A large V came into view in the night sky. I recognized it immediately, as I had been in these formations far too many times. Around thirty dragons were raiding the village NOW. A loud shout came from the village, as the first dragon fired on one of the houses. It was weird seeing the battle from withouth actually fighting, and a part of me wanted to jump down there and roast some vikings. I had to remind myself to remain hidden.

It was total chaos. The humans were shooting arrows and nets from the towers or running in all directions. A trio of dragons landed outside the pantry and blasted a hole in one of the walls. This was followed by a dozen of dragons of all sizes rushing in and taking whatever they could find. I searched for familiar faces and saw Scarnose between the pantry and the rest of the village, fighting off half a dozen of warriors standing in front of him. He was raging and incredibly furious, blasting away at them repeatedly. When he was out of fire, he launched all his spikes at them, hitting two, before quickly taking off. At the same time I saw a terrible terror being hit by an arrow on the chest and falling down. Seconds later, the dragons ran out of the pantry with anything they could carry, with some food falling from their grip as they took off.

The whole raid had taken less than two minutes, and now there were two human bodies and a dead terrible terror on the ground, with a bit of blood dripping from the torso. Scarnose had fought really hard, not only to protect the others but to hurt, or even kill the humans. He had said "I'm gonna make them pay" and it looked like if he was dead serious about it.

I looked at the villages reaction. They were all gathered around the two fallen viking warriors, and crying? I hadn't really thought about the fact that humans had to endure the raids, I just focused on making sure me and the other dragons survived, and saw viking as enemies that wanted to kill us. These raids ended deep bonds, lives and friendships in seconds, for both sides. Of course, in battle that was the last thing on your mind. And somehow a human had spared and fed me despite all of this.

I stayed in the tree all the night, with no idea what to do. In the meantime, the two warriors were put on a small canoe that was rowed fifty meters from the coast by two female vikings. Then it was set on fire by the rowers, who later swam back to shore, where the entire village watched. A large male stood in front of the others and spoke loudly enough for me to hear. I couldn't understand what he said, but it was the exact same tone that the Red Death used when she sent us out to the raids. "They fish our world dry, but we will fight back!" echoed trough my head. In reality the only reason we raided was to survive, but her words did help to get rid of guilt. I noticed that noone had taken care of the downed terror.

When the morning came I climbed down from the tree to avoid getting spotted while the houses and paths woke up to life again. People started walking around, eating and chatting with each other. Still, it seemed like a cloud of sadness hanged over the village. I saw a couple of familiar faces, spare boy and axe girl were discussing or fighting loudly close to the forest. The tone of the words got worse and worse. I wondered what they were fighting over, pheraps because of me.

My stomach growled since I hadn't eaten since last night, but I forced myself to keep looking. I even walked closer to them so that I could see clearer, hiding in some tall snow covered bushes. This could be important. Suddenly, axe girl stamped on the ground, silencing the boy, then said a few short sentences and walked off. He stayed in place and watched her walk away with his fists clenched. It was risky, but I took a few steps towards him and roared just loud enough for him to notice.

His head snapped in my direction and when he saw me he jumped back. Looking at me straight in the eyes he ran towards me and shushed me, obviously he thought "what the hell are you doing here".

\- I'm sorry for the raid.

I said. If he called the other vikings here things would get bad, so I had to make him trust me, despite the two deaths last night. He came towards me and pointed to the forest, clearly wanting me to leave. He said something in the lines of "go away from this island", and "you are monsters" in a not-so-nice tone.

\- I can't.

I answered sadly. Withouth thinking about it I slammed my broken tail onto his face, wich made him fall back in surprise. When he got back to his feet he took the tail in his hands, making me quiver from the contact, and examined it closely.

\- That's why.

The boy stood there thinking for a moment, but I was becoming far too worried from standing this close to the village. I rushed back to the protection of the forest, trying to avoid making noise. To my surprise, spare boy followed me, even though he was almost raging at me seconds ago. He called for me, but I kept going, afraid of what the humans could do to me. Finally, when I reached a well hidden place behind a fallen tree stopped and waited for him.

He called me again, so I grunted lightly for him to find me. When he got up to me he made the same sound again. Had he given me a name?

\- I'm sorry for the two dead vikings.

I tried again. Instead of shouting at me, he pointed to my tail, so I moved up to his face again. With my head pointed at him I said.

\- If I could fly away I would.

After examining my tail again, he put his hands on his hair and pulled them slowly down to the neck, like if he wanted to cut away the flesh with his nails. Why was HE worried that I couldn't fly? Then he got up to my head, and watched me straight in the eyes with a dead serious expression. He pointed to himself and then to the tail.

\- Is this your fault?

I said loudly, while watching him dead on in the eyes. He nodded as an answer.

When I realized what he had done I suddently jumped on him, making him fall on the soft snow. To stop him from escaping I pushed him down with my right leg, turning it so that the scar and burn mark was visible for him to see. I closed my head onto his and growled slowly.

\- You tried to kill me and doomed me to this island. Why should is spare you?!

Struggling for air, the boy tried to remove my leg, resulting only in me pushing him down harder. I opened my mouth and got the teeth even closer to his eyes.

\- Why?

Instead of answering, the viking lifted his hands and petted my head. This caught me off guard, and I leaned away before realizing he hadn't tried to hurt me. He petted me again, down to my neck, and smiled? At me?

I slowly let pressure off him, and he slipped away. However he didn't run away. He pointed at himself and made a sound.

\- Is that your name?

I asked. He nodded while repeating the same sound, something like "iccap". I was about to start mocking him for it, but instead pointed at myself and said my own name.

\- Toothless. Tooth-Less.

Iccap then stretched his hand towards me, like if he wanted me to touch him. Why? He had already touched me several times. But if it made him happy... I slowly put my muzzle in his hand and time seemed to freeze for a second. However I was still going to get revenge somehow, so I pushed him to hid back and licked him all wet in less than two seconds. Iccap looked disgusted while laying on the ground, and I laughed loudly at him, releasing all the anger I had kept boiling inside since Scarnose left.

His expression switched from disgusted to amused, and he jumped on my neck and held it hard, but not in a threatening way. He pointed at my tail, then looked me in the eyes and with the help of gestures gave a very clear message:

\- Iccap gonna help you.


	10. Chapter 10: Deer

Sooooo, I accidentally wrote a chapter that is over twice as long as the second longest one at the same time as RL got pretty busy. So this took a while. But here it is, Enjoy?

Astrid couldn't kill Toothless. Yes, he was stuck on an unknown island but he was still a night fury! This meant he was incredibly fast, had great firepower and was almost invisible in the night sky. He couldn't be killed by a fifteen year old girl. I didn't have to praise her in front of dad anymore. If only this wasn't a lie.

Toothless had lost just abour everything he needed to survive. And just to make things better, it was my fault. I removed the last of the saliva off my hair and walked into the forge. I took some vellum and charchoal and threw them on the table. If I had managed do bring down a night fury I could also bring it back in the sky.

Half an hour passed and a drawing for the new tail sat on the table. It was nothing special, just a leather triangle supported by three metal rods. Small lantches in the front and aft of the fin would attach it to Toothless' tail. I put a large chunk of metal in the melting pan and slid it into the fire before strengthening it with a large chunk of pine wood.

I woke up with my head on a piece of leather. I looked around me. Axes, pieces of metal and a large oven with a bit of charcoal still smoking. It was early morning. I looked down to the finished tailfin, looking just like the drawing. Pheraps building it all in one go wasn't the best idea, but hey, it worked.

I hadn't eaten much in the last two days, so I went back into the pantry to pick something. I didn't want to eat in the hall with the other teens, not after what usually happened. The building had been completely rebuilt yesterday, but there was something you couldn't replace as easily. The room was a lot emptpier. Where there

had previously hanged three boars there were only one, and a lot of the bread was gone. Some of that was due to vikings, but it was those big lizards that did most of the work. "And you helped them with that" rang trough my head. I grabbed a loaf from a basket. Proper viking sourdough bread, made to last trough months of hard winter. It was completely frozen, but it was sweet and I was hungry. If the raids continued like this the whole village would be. And there were almost two months left until saumon season.

I walked up to some nearby cliffs and sat down to eat my breakfast. I came here often to look down on Berk and get away from it's people, especially some of them. Sadly I had an outstanding level of luck.

\- Sup loser?

Snotlout, Astrid and the twins were walking up to me. The smirk on his face said it all. I tried to ignore them, and took another bit of the loaf,

\- I said "Sup loser". Can't you just answer like a normal person for once!

\- You're not worthy an answer.

An "oohh" came from the twins and, just like that the game was on.

\- I heard that you an your dad were fighting. That's no surprise, even he can't stand you.

\- We didn't fight and you know it.

\- Oh really? Then how come he wants to make me chief?

I turned to Astrid. Of course she was a part of this.

\- He doesn't.

\- And "I think she would make a great chief" was just a dream? That the entire village had?

Laughter rose from the other teens. When had she turned like this?

\- You know exactly why I'm doing this, so don't complain. Plus, almost noone heard it.

Her smirk didn't change. Our eyes locked for a split second. To my surprise, they weren't filled with the same cruelty of her words. There was some, but most of it was just pity. That moment ended as fast as it started.

\- Yeah, You've finally realized how awful you would be and getting someone else to do the job for you.

\- Oh well. Still better than Snot.

First rule, split the enewmy. This made Astrid give a small chuckle while his face turned red.

\- Hey! Take that back!

\- And what if I don't?

\- Then I slam your stupid ass to the ground so so hard that the pain will last months.

\- Still less than if Astrid would try.

A giggle came from the two girls while Tuffnut kept saying "fight!" over and over. Snotlout was standing in front of me, trying to make himself as intimidating as possible. I stood up too.

\- I'd like to see you try.

\- No you wouldn't.

\- What are you gonna do, tickle me?

I didn't want to get into a fight with him (mostly because I knew the outcome) but he was SO annoying. My hand clenched into a fist.

\- I can hurt you if I want.

\- Really? Then try, 'cause it's a bit hard to believe when looking at you.

Laughter again. I wanted to punch his nose so badly. I took all my strength to avoid swinging my fist.

\- We've got already enough problems with the dragons, we shouldn't be fighting each other.

Snotlout looked dissaponted, and that was a good thing. He put his mouth in his elbow and made farting noises.

\- Boooring!

\- Almost as boring as you.

The twins laughed again, at him this time. Even Astrid gave a little chuckle. I needed to imbarass him more often.

\- Let's leave. This loser doesn't deserve our attention.

I had won, and they knew it. They left me and started chatting again , and soon laughter could be heard. Basically, I was just fun if they could mock me. I took another bite of the loaf.

I walked into the forest with the fin and a couple of sausages. Hopefully doing something could get my mind off what had just happened. And I had to stop Toothelss from being at Astrid's mercy. So the first order of business was finding the night fury.

After walking far enouhg from the village that noone could hear me I walked around the the island for a couple hours, shouting "bud" every few minutes. I walked up to a small herd of deer that run away from me towards some boulders. I wondered how they were still alive after all the hunting we had done in the autumn. I had started to walk away, but a shriek of pain made me turn my head again.

The deer were all running for their lives, except for one that struggled to get away from Toothless's paws. The night fury pressed the deer on it's back using his front paws on the head and shoulder before coming down and in a swift movement bit off the back of the neck and all sound stopped. He looked up at me and nodded with pride written all over his face. A tiny stream of blood flowed down from from the side of his jaw. I nodded at the deer while walking closer.

\- Nice catch!

Toothless walked towards me with a wide smile on his face, while holding the deer by it's neck using his jaw. I felt a small string of fear for a moment, thinking about how easy it would be for him to do that to me.

\- I brought more sausages, but it looks like food isn't really a problem for you.

The dragon peeked at the of meat in my hands and started to laugh at how small my "catch" was. Without warning, he swiftly divided the body in two parts using his hind legs and mouth, before tossing the back part towards me. I fell back in disgust as part of the spine hit me, staining my clothes in fresh blood.

\- There was absolutely no CLEANER way to do this! Real kind of you!

Apparently he didn't understand what I said. He gave a purr of approval, like if I had said that he was the kindest and most beautiful creature of all time.

\- Wait, you saw that I was low on food and gave me some? You wanted to help me bud?

He gave me a small roar. I, well everyone, always believed that dragons were brutal creatures driven by hunger. Or killing machines. But neither of those things helped their victims not to starve to death.

\- We know almost nothing about you, do we?

Toothless didn't understand my question and stared at me blankly. Or pheraps he thought that the answer was so obvious it didn't need telling. He pointed at my part of the deer, while sinking his teeth in his own.

\- Wait, I have to eat that?

He looked up at me and nodded calmly, before going back to his meal. He didn't seem to consider the possibility that I didn't want to eat raw, hairy and still bleeding meat.

\- Listen bud. I appreciate the tought but I'm NOT eating this.

The dragon had finished his meal and looked up at me. He looked up and growled, curios to why I wasn't eating.

\- For humans to eat something, it needs something that is called decency.

His look got from curios to incredibly curios and confused, as if that concept was a ground-breaking discovery. Giving up explaining, I tried to change argument.

\- Oh, I almost forgot.

I showed him the contraption while pointing at the missing tailfin. The dragon closed in on it and sniffed my hands. He opened his mouth and I quickly git the fin away from him.

\- NO! NOT food! You really want to eat your ticket off this island?

He answered with a "croo?" and I moved up to the tailfin, with Toothless closely following my movements.

\- A new tail bud, so that you can FLY again!

After a couple of seconds, his eyes widened and he started to jump around like a overgrown puppy. I had never seen him so relaxed before.

\- Calm down bud! How am I supposed to attach it to you when you're moving like that?

The dragon understood and stopped moving, but not before giving me a few affectionate licks, because deer blood just wasn't enough.

I closed the latches tightly and pushed in the pins. I shook the fin a little to test it's strength. The fin wobbled a little, but held.

\- You can fly now.

I said that much quieter than I had meant to, and started to feel sad. Toothless was going to leave me. The dragon looked at his tail and in my direction. He seemed dubious.

\- You can fly. Trust me.

Pheraps he wouldn't leave? If he gave me food that meant he cared for me, at least a little bit? He swung the tail from side to side, testing how it felt.

\- I'm the biggest expert of night furies of my village. You're going to fly.

Toothless watched me. His pupils lit up in determination. He started running, leapt in the sky, flew straight for a few seconds, turned upwards and towards the left, kept turing to the left, started pointing to the ground, gave a roar of fear, hit a tree with his elbow and let out a shriek of pain.

I ran towards the crash site, Toothless was moving slowly and making pain-filled croos. When I was about six meters from him his head snapped in my direction and making an angry growl, freezing me on the spot. He kept staring into my eyes with anger. I gulped, remembering the deer from a few minutes ago.

\- I-I'm sorry. That wasn't supposed to happen.

The dragon kept his stare and closed in on me slowly. I took a step back.

\- I know you're angry, but I didn't mean that to happen.

Toothless was less than three meters away from me now. He showed his teeth, that were squeezed shut. I tried to talk again with my voice down to a whisper.

\- Please don't kill me.

The dragon kept watching me in the eyes for a couple more seconds. "What happened to you?". While creeping closer and closer, he closed his eyes while the corners of his mouth went up. Unable to keep it in, he lifted his head into the sky and laughed loudly, with his eyes returning to normal.

\- You're a monster.

After another one of his signature purrs, he bit the fin with his jaw and tried to rip it off. The back latch had slid off, and the tail hanged on the front one. So, the latches were too loose to keep it steady. After some failed attempts, Toothless looked at me with pleading eyes, while pointing at the fin.

\- And a drama queen.

I opened the latch and removed the fin.

\- Yeah. This design was trash.

He nodded, and took the fin with his jaw, before moving the fin onto a small rock. I walked closer to see what he was doing when a bright purple explosion tore the fin to shreds. The leather had been turned to ashes and it's metal skeleton was thrown a few meters away, glowing red hot from the heat.

The next day I was back in the forge, armed with a new set of drawing tools. In his flight attempt, Toothless had moved the right tailfin up and down. The old fin design couldn't do that. Was that the cause of the crash?

An hour later, the new blueprint was ready. It was made to be sleeker, lighter and with a larger surface area. More importantly, latches that wouldn't lock on to the tail but to the healthy fin, keeping the two parallel. The fire was already burning from some axe heads Gobber had been working on, saving me a step.

A few minutes later I was half-sleeping, waiting for the steel to melt. A voice made me turn my head.

\- Hey.

\- Astrid.

\- Yeah.

She was standing in the entry of the workshop, with a look of vague curiosity on her face. Her look sweeped across the room, but got stuck on the drawing.

\- What are you doing?

I understood there was no purpose in lying.

\- Getting Toothless away from you.

Her expression turned to worried.

\- You-you're trying to get the night fury airborne?

\- Yeah.

\- By building a new tail?

\- Yeah.

Her eyes were now wide open and her head tilted sideways.

\- Why?

\- I grounded him, I unground him. It's no more than fair.

\- Him?

\- Him.

She looked confused, so I pointed at my pants. She nodded and looked away for a split second. She answered sarcastically.

\- So you're going to give HIM his fire back too?

\- He's got it back already.

I regretted these words a second later, but it was too late. Her eyes widened.

\- And you're still building that tail?

\- Yeah.

\- YOU'RE GONNA GET PEOPLE KILLED!

I wasn't ready for the shout, and almost fell back on the bench. But I was right and I knew it.

\- He won't kill anyone.

\- Yeah, because night furies have never caused any deaths whatsoever.

\- He had the chance to kill me. He had _millions_ of chances to kill me. But I'm still alive.

Astrid scratched her head, in deep thought.

\- That doesn't mean anything.

\- What do you mean?! He could kill me and he didn't!

\- It didn't kill _you_. Pheraps you don't look dangerous, or you helped him, or something else. Plus, It's a lot harder to be that kind in the heat of battle!

\- Why should it go back to doing raids?

\- Hunger, instincts, why do ANY dragons raid?

I opened my mouth to complain before realizing I didn't know the answer.

\- We don't know why they do, but something makes them come back again and again, no matter ow many of them we kill.

She had a point. Our village didn't know the first thing about dragons, but neither did I. Not yet.

\- And you think that that something will make Toothelss go back to raiding.

\- Honestly, if you didn't think of this earlier you'r...

\- Yeah, yeah, I get it.

There was a break for a couple seconds, while Astrid looked in deep tought. I looked at the oven. The steel was almost liquid now.

\- I have a deal.

\- I'm listening.

She turned towards me and pointed at the two of us.

\- With it's fire back, it's a bit dangerous to kill the night fury. Alone.

\- I see where this is going. No.

This didn't stop her talking.

\- We kill it together and share the honour. Safe, and win-win.

\- No.

Astrid shook her head.

\- You get to be the village hero for a bit, that's more than you could ever hope for!

\- What's in it for you? If I look stupid then you profit, so why?

\- I care about this village okay? And you're part of it. I only want you off the throne because you're...

She moved her mouth witouth sound, as if she was searching for the right words. She was starting to get me on my nerves.

\- I'm WHAT? What do I have that makes me so unwanted?

She took a big breath and looked into my eyes.

\- Incompetent, clumsy, weak. A waste of resources, especially now that we're running low.

She said these worlds quickly, witouth emotion. This wasn't an insult, it was her honest opinion. And her honest opinion hurt like hell.

\- You're wrong.

To my surprise, she didn't answer me but nodded instead, her eyes lit up in a strange way.

\- Yes! PROVE me I'm wrong! Help me kill that monster and help the village for once!

She wanted to help me. She cared about me. Everything I had ever wanted just a month ago handed on a silver plate.

\- No.

She closed her eyes for a couple seconds and gritted her teeth.

\- Then you're not getting chief. Go tell that to Stoick now.

\- No. And you're not making me.

\- Then Toothless is DEAD. Fire and all, as long as it's flightless It's harmless! I can kill it with arrows from the safety of a boulder

My hand clenched into a fist, and I walked up to her. I was a bit taller, but she was much stronger, so there wasn't much to gain there. I took a deep breath to calm down.

\- Alright, I'll go talk to him. But you're wrong about Toothless. He won't kill anyone.

\- Start walking.

\- You storm into my workshop, call me a waste of resources, and now force me to ashame myself again? Was that your plan when you came here?

Astrid looked to the side and scratched her chin for a moment.

\- I actually came her to apologize for being rude yesterday. I planned to blame it on group pressure. But now it seems like if it was the right thing to do.

She pointed to the exit of the hut, and I had no choice but to follow.

The next morning was spent avoiding everyone and everything, while continuing the work on the tail. I locked myself in my workshop and noone came to bother me. Even Gobber didn't try talking, even though he was working at the other side of the door. I walked outside, while carrying the tail under my coat. People gave me weird stares that I tried to avoid. I didn't go to the pantry this time to get out of the village as soon as possible. And because there wasn't much left there anyways.

The night fury ran up to me as soon as I got closed to the boulder patch. It was more excited to see me than anyone had done for a long time. Even his tongue was sticking out.

\- No, bud. I'm NOT in the mood for your welcoming kisses!

Toothless completely ignored my words and gave me some affectionate licks, forcing me to sit down. He seemed to have completely forgotten that I made him hit a tree. And grounded him.

\- Don't think that a few licks make up for what I have to do to keep you alive.

He gave me a questioning look.

\- Easy for you to forget, while you're roaming the woods. Just take the fin and go.

I got it out of my coat. The dragon sniffed it and nodded. But then he looked at my face. He made another one of his croos. I sighed.

\- Sorry, I shouldn't blame you. I'm just having a bad day.

He pushed up to my side, nearly making me fall back. After a bunch of purrs, I was feeling slightly better.

\- Thanks bud.

He kept purring, seemingly having forgotten about the fin. After a couple minutes, the night fury lifted his head, quickly ran towards the boulders, and came back with the back half of the deer.

\- You actually kept it?! Wow that's intelligent! But I'm still not eating it, if that's what you mean.

After another croo, that was clearly a complaint, he placed the meat on my lap.

\- You're really kind but it's raw! I'm sorry!

Not giving up, the dragon took the meat, threw it in the air and fired at it in a bright explosion. A smoking piece of charcoal landed back on the ground.

\- That's practical.

Using my knife I tore away the black layer of the flesh. Unsurprisingly, the inside was still raw. But I got an idea. I gathered some sticks from the forest, and put them on a rock.

\- Can you try firing on them bud? Caaarefully, so we don't start a wildfire?

And like a pro, Toothless fired a weak shot slightly above the rock, with the explosion lighting the branches witouth throwing them off everywhere.

\- Woah, have you been training?

He gave me a curious look, not understanding my words. It was easy to forget he had only been with humans for a few days. After cutting the leg off, I put it on a stick and into the fire. It wasn't fine cuisine, but I was hungry.

\- How about we test your new tail out in the meantime?

He crooed happily, tough not nearly as enthusiastic as last time. Probably because he knew new the high chance of failure. Nevertheless, he moved the tail in my direction. The latches were more and stronger this time, so putting it on was harder. But hopefully that meant it would actually stay there.

\- Clear for takeoff. But pheraps a bit careful this time?

This time I felt better. I couldn't be sure, but something told me that even if he managed to fly, he wouldn't leave. Toothless started walking towards the coast, probably looking for a safer flying ground. We walked for about a kilometer until we reached the beach. Toothless crooed one more time before he shot up into the sky.

He slipped to the left more and more and splashed in the shallow water three seconds later. There were more attempts that day, all ending with a dragon slightly more wet than before. But also more notes and sketches in my sketchpad. And as I started to get an idea of what was happening, a thought started building up in my head.

I'd build an all moving left fin completely independent of the movements of the healthy one, that would be controlled by a human sitting on the dragon. My brain rejected it at first, probably because it seemed like a great way to get yourself killed, but it solved so many problems, and not only technical ones. I wouldn't give the world's deadliest killer the chance to do another raid.

The world's deadliest killer crooed curiosly at my side, wondering what could be so interesting about some pieces of vellum that had kept me staring for the last twenty minutes.

A kid and two warriors died in the raid that night, either directly by fires or crushed in burning buildings. I didn't know any of them personally, but because of the small size of Berk I knew their faces. One of them was Alvi Hofferson, Astrid's grandpa. More often than not this was the fate of old warriors, and kinda expected, So she had kept together her head high during the funeral. But still.

The following days were spent between the forge and Toothless. To my surprise, the dragon was always excited to see mee, even when when he found out my visits didn't always bring food or fins. During our secret visits I also found out a few new things about him, like that he loved fish and chin scratches.

I managed to improve things with Astrid when she found out I only planned to get myself killed, instead of the whole village. Or pheraps my machines weren't what she cared about right now. I still had to praise her a couple times, but it wasn't nearly as bad as before.

Finally, after almost a week of hard work, the fin was ready. I had reused a large part of the older fin, but the saddle and the hinge were built from scratch. A system of ropes allowed the movement of the fin to be controlled by a lever attached to the left of the saddle. Lastly, a couple of small rings that would attach to the scales on the back to avoid that the ropes got caught up in the dragon's wings or paws. The complete set weighed around forty kilos.

\- I need to be on the saddle for it to work ok? So don't jump into the sky as soon as I put it on you, ok?

I petted the dragon again, and tried to fasten the saddle onto his neck. Toothless growled and pushed it away.

\- I can't build a tail you can use alone. So I'll have to ride on you.

Defeated, he stayed still while I fastened the saddle. After some fiddling, I managed to wrap the ropes around his front legs hard enough for the saddle not to slid off but not so hard to hurt him too much. He gave some complaining croos, but stopped soon.

\- I'm sorry bud, can you manage a little bit?

Next up, the rings were attached to the scales, followed by the tail rig. The last step was knotting the control ropes to the right length to allow a full degree of movement. I climbed onto the saddle and grabbed the lever, while looking up at the ocean in front of me.

\- Ready bud?

While Toothless roared happily, I had the time to think "Pheraps this isn't a good idea". He opened his wings and shot into the sky. I screamed.

I was holding on to the dragon's neck with all my strenght, with liters of adrenaline filling up in my blood. Gritting my teeth, I opened an eye. We were slipping left and the water was getting closer. I pulled the lever towards me and we started going up again. I looked at the fin, that was bent upwards.

\- We're going up! We've done it!

Toothless crooed happily while giving powerful flaps. But after a few seconds we were vertical, and still pitching up.

\- Too far up! Do something!

We started slipping left, meanin that we were heading towards land. Great. I pushed the lever forwards, and finally we were heading down again. After a few seconds we managed to flatten out, flying a hundred meters over the island. I lifted looked away from the lever for a split second and saw the village in the distance.

\- We're high up. Careful.

The dragon growled while we kept flying forwards. I looked down at the ground and immediately regretted it. Falling from this height would be fatal. I talked to him, trying to not show the fear in my voice.

\- Looking good bud, wanna try turning?

After a few minutes I started getting an idea of how it worked. I only controlled the left fin, so I couldn't steer the flight on my own. For Toothelss, same story. I had to tell the direction, get his approval and only then move the fin. This worked, but was slow. And the hardest part was yet to come. Landing.

We flew back to the beach and flattened at about five meters, with the dragon gliding and slowly losing speed.

\- Steady...

Since there were no long beaches on Berk, we were rapidly running out of landing space. But we were slowing down.

\- Steaaaaaady...

Pulling up the lever more, and more, we kept slowing down. But not fast enough. We started losing altitude.

\- No, no no! Up, up!

He made a strong flap, and got us higher, but didn't flatten out. Next thing I knew we were falling from the skies. All I could do was scream "aaaaah!", while the night fury managed a "croooooow!".

\- You're ok bud?

He gave me a sound that was everything but a compliment.

\- I know, I know.

Toothless growled and lied down in the warer that was reaching about his chin. My clothes were splashed with water and mud, just to change things up a bit, but we were alive.

There was still a lot of work to do. The fin wasn't prefect, I couldn't use it well and it didn't help against Astrid. But I was the first viking to fly. A part of me wanted to show off my new dragon to everyone and finally gain their respect, doing something no viking had done before, but in this village it wasn't an option.

Or was it?

**No. Dragon training isn't a thing im this fic, because capturing and containing and feeding the dragons isn't cheap. And because, from what we see in the movie, it is just as dangerous as being in a raid, especially with Gobber's methods.**


	11. Chapter 11: Traitor

**Yes, I did skip the entire tail-and-saddle-building-and-first-flight part of the book, because I want to reach the juicy part of the plot quickly. Before you start calling me a degenerated madman, I know this could be a mistake. So, if you comment "please write the tail-and-saddle-building-and-first-flight part of the book" I will. If that part is written, you know why. Also, is this text okay for T rating or do I have to remove some language? Anyways...**

My shoulder hurted a bit while i pulled up on the tundra. Probably from the arrow I had recieved the other day. I landed besides the reindeer's carcasse and started eating what little was left, including the bones. After leaving Toothless three weeks ago I had been striking back at the humans every raid, and had managed to kill around five of them, although I wasn't sure about the exact number. It hadn't been easy tough. The humans outnumbered us and had loads of long range weapons, and we had lost Toothless, our only night fury. The arrow heas in the shoulder and cut on my stomach showed that, and for other dragons it was even worse. A lot worse.

I thought about Toothless. I had flown to the beach several times, but never seen him there. There was a chance he was still alive, and hiding around the island, roasting the humans that came too near. However I had convinced myself that he was dead, brutally killed by that small axe-bearing viking as soon as I left. Then again, he had cheated death before. I could almost hear is the whistle from his wings in the distance, but I knew that it was only imagination.

I heard that sound again. This time I was sure it was real. I took off withouth even finishing my meal, and flew in direction of the whistle. How was this possible? He couldn't fly right? Was it another night fury? I increased the pace to avoid losing whoever was making the sound. It seemed to come from the middle of nowhere, there was nothing but water here.

An unidentified black blob dove down from the dark, grey clouds at lightning speed, passing less than thirty meters from me. I banked heavily to avoid a crash, then looked down at the blob. Withouth doubt a night fury.

\- Toothless!!

By now I was almost certain it was him. It was the exact same whistle I had heard every single raid up until a few weeks ago. He flew straight forward for and turned his his head against me.

\- Scarnose!

Hearing his voice again filled me up with joy. I dove down to him with a million questions to ask, before spotting something on him.

\- HUMAN ON YOUR BACK I'M COMING

Hearing this, his pupils shrunk down to slits.

\- Scarnose, don't do it!

He roared. However I was in full-on-battle-mode coming down claws first towards his back, and didn't notice. Just before reaching them, Toothless flipped upside down and I had to pull up hard to avoid clawing his belly to shreds.

\- SCARNOSE LISTEN

\- IT'S GONNA KILL YOU

\- NO IT'S NOT!

What? There was a human on his back and he wasn't worried? I wanted to go for another attack run but pheraps I could listen to what he said first.

\- Explain!

I yelled while flying a hundred meters above them, ready to strike down again if that became necessary.

\- I need him to fly!

\- You can't fly!

Okay, given the situation it might have been a stupid thing to say.

\- I can when he's helping me!

\- It's gonna kill you!

\- If he wanted to he would've already done that!

I was confused, but I understood enough to not claw that thing to death, for now. I flew closer to them.

\- Explain yourself!

\- Can we go back to land first?

I guessed this was an option. It wasn't exactly easy to talk while flying at this speed.

\- Fine.

He looked much more calm now and nodded, before pointing his head towards a nearby island.

\- That way!

He then turned towards the island. Who had he talked to? I threw a quick look on the human on his back. He was looking at me while smiling and waving. I gave a loud growl back.

It was more of a rock big rock than an island. He landed first, and the human quickly jumped off. As soon as my feet touched ground began to bombard him with questions.

\- How can you fly? What's that on your back? Why are you with a human?

The human looked worried and kept an arm on Toothelss' back. How dared it touch my friend?

\- Okay, okay, calm down. I had lost my tailfin, but this human built me a new one. It needs the human to work, I can't fly withouth his help. The thing on my back is used by the human to sit on and control the fin.

He lifted his tail in my direction revealing a brown leather fin with ropes connecting it to the thing on his back.

-Also this human has a name, Hiccup.

What had happened to him? He had suddently become friend with the enemy?

\- Have you named it?!

\- HIM not it. Also no, he said the name himself.

I was becoming mad. After all my efforts to get rid of humans to avenge him and Armpit, Toothless had befriended them? He walked closer to me, and I took a step backwards. What had happened to him?

\- And what's next? And you gonna help them defend the village too, blasting at us as we do our best to survive?

\- Listen, they arent all bad...

\- Just look at yourself! You've got dozens of scars, new ones too, all because of them! Just look at your leg and your tail! And you're still saying they aren't all bad!

He looked at me with guilt in his eyes. Like if that would make up for what he had done.

\- Please list...

\- So that you can give me more pro-human propaganda! Fuck no traitor! Fuck humans! FUCK YOU!

\- SCARNOSE!

I wasn't ready for the raise in tone and jumped back again. Alright, maybe I had been a little harsh. I almost felt bad. Toothless took a deep breath and started taking again.

\- What's that in your shoulder?

\- A a sharp arrow head that your lovely FRIENDS gave me, thanks for asking!

He nodded.

\- Please stay completly still for the next two minutes. Trust me.

He then made a call to the viking, who had been watching us from Toothless's side this entire time. He pointed at my shoulder with his muzzle. The human caught sight of the iron, nodded, and started walking towards me.

\- What's happening?

\- Keep calm. Hiccup will touch you to try to remove the arrow head, and it may even cause some pain, but he won't hurt you. You have to promise me you won't kill him.

\- But...

\- Scarnose, please trust me.

Hiccup started touching me, and climbed upon my leg. I had a large desire to throw/burn/claw him off my body. But if it made Toothless happy... I sighed.

\- Alright, I promise.

I turned my head at the viking on me.

\- But I keep an eye on you!

Both him and Toothelss nodded in approval, just as Hiccup got the metal out using a nipper.

\- Ow!

The human got off my back, and walked in front of me. I turned my head sideways to see him holding the arrow head in his hand with the definition of pride written on his face. He let out a hand in my direction and turned his face away.

\- What does he want to do now?

\- He wants you to touch his hand. It's some kind of weird human ritual.

I did as Toothless said. It was the first time I touched another human while neither side tryed to kill the other.

\- Alright, maybe they aren't ALL bad...

\- Glad you realized that. But Hiccup is the only one I talk to, I have a doubt that not all of them are this gentle.

I nodded. However, that left a problem.

\- So what's next? You live in harmony with them while we raid sounds a bit hard.

\- Hiccup may have an idea. I kinda understand what he says after three weeks, and if it works, it could end the war between us.

Okay, this sounded awesome. Toothelss was talking slowly and silently for some reason.

\- Hey, why did you stop talking? Fill me in!

\- Me and Hiccup flying in front of all of the village, firing, diving, and catching fish. Hopefully they will understand it's worth befriending us.

Okay, from the start this plan sonded wrong.

\- So you're basically selling yourself up as a slave?

He opened his mouth to complain, but no sound came out. A couple seconds passed.

\- Yeah. But still better than a mortal enemy to be killed on sight. Hopefully they'll start befriending us soon enough.

\- And how does this change anything? There is a little, a hundred meters long, flying and firebreathing problem. If we don't raid, we die.

He looked at me and smiled. What was so fun about this? Hiccup, had walked down by my side and leaned on my leg. I looked down at him for a moment before going back to Toothless.

\- Yes, you die. That's exactly what needs to happen.

\- What?

\- At least, that's what SHE needs to belive. If you escape she will chase you to the end of the world, but to die is completely acceptable. When she runs out of dragons she'll be forced to go somewhere else of starve.

I stopped for a moment to think. Hiccup looked at my expression, curious.

\- Too risky, too many things that can go wrong. You'll probably get yourself killed at the demonstration flight, and even if that works, there is no guarantee the Red Death will just lean back as we all "die". You're better off wandering the woods, I can bring food.

Toothless shook his head. I saw he was determined to fullfil the plan.

\- Pheraps better for me, but worse for _literally_ _everyone_ _else_. I need to at least try.

\- Please don't. I need you, don't die.

\- Says the creature that stands in the front line of every raid to kill the enemy. Don't you tell me to care for myself.

Had he seen that?

\- That's different. I help other dragons by doing that.

\- Me too. Just because less vikings die it doesn't mean that we don't benefit.

\- IF it works!

The night fury looked up in the sky. He was obviously thinking about the same thing.

\- I need your help to improve the odds.

\- You're not flying in frong of that village. The end.

\- You can help by making sure that the dragons "die" smoothly, and that they don't shoot first. Can you do that?

\- I can, but you're not going.

\- Yeah, we're going tomorrow.

I started too panick. It was too soon, I wasn't ready for this.

\- Tomorrow? Please, think about it. It was Hiccups idea, how do you know it isn't a trap to kill you? Does he even know about the Red Death?

\- I couldn't tell him about her, he has a hard time understanding our language. But it's worth the risk.

\- Don't do it. Please! I need you to live!

\- You want me to live...

I nodded. Toothless was so kind, ready to risk his life for the best of all of us. But I still didn't want him to go.

\- Then you should have got food in that village. It's your fault I had to do a second pass.

\- Come on, you're going to bring that up too?

\- Listen, I don't want to die either. But I trust Hiccup enough to believe I'll be fine.

\- Let me at least watch your flight, ready to help if needed.

\- Alright, but ONLY if I call you. ONLY. Please don't ruin this.

\- Okay, ONLY then.

The dragon turned to Hiccup, who had been sitting at my head this entire time. He said "I'm ready", using plenty of body language. Probably to make it esier to understand for the human. The viking got up, and petted our heads, while saying something.

\- What did he just say?

\- "Let's get some rest. Tomorrow we've got a big day."


	12. Chapter 12: Demonstration

**Since noone asked, I'm moving to the next chapter. If you want to I'll still write that part, but I'd rather not. If no one request the first flight chapter by the end of the month, you'll never get it (That's right. Never). Also, are there grammar mistakes in my chapters? Moving on...**

We were gathered next to the village hall, packed as sardines because of the cold weather. An icy wind swept down and hit us straight in the face. We had thought that the cold was gone when the snow had melted in those warm days of april, but it had picked up new strength and now thick grey clouds swept over our heads. Large waves splashed towards the coast.

It wouldn't have hurt if anyone told me what was going on inside my sons brain. Starting from three weeks ago, he was almost never at home, and when he was he tried to avoid me. The few times we did talk, he talked about Astrid being a great candidate for chief, reinforcing his status as the village weirdo. And now he had gathered the entire village to show us "something truly incredible, never done before"? Also, the raids had gotten worse. In the last month alone we had lost eleven warriors, including Lumphill, that I knew quite well. Her children, the Thorston twins, were devastated over the loss of their mother. The raids tended to get worse in this period, when food got scarce, but that was little consolation to the victims' families. The only positive thing was that the night furies had given us a break. Hiccup couldn't have chosen a better moment to ridicule himself.

\- Gobber, any idea what he's up to?

He was besides me, looking almost equally confused. Almost.

\- He has been building strange things in the workshop, but when I asks him what they he changes argument. He has also destroyed the drawings, so I have no idea what he built. But pheraps that's what he want to show us.

\- Makes sense, but why the sudden admiration for Astrid?

\- No idea, you should know him better than me.

Still, it felt like if I knew so little about him. Other that the fact he wasn't good at killing dragons and liked building strange half-working machines in the forge, there wasn't much about his life I knew about. Did that make me a bad parent? Although Hiccup had invited the whole village, only about a third of Berk came, and most of them were probably just looking for a good laugh.

\- Hello everybody!

The crowd turned towards Hiccups voice. He was standing on the top of the hall, looking at us with a strange amount of pride on his face. Once he got our attention, he continued.

\- Dragons are killing far too many of us! But that doesn't have to be the case!

He later slipped down from the roof to the other side of the building, where we couldn't see him. His last worlds had managed to get our attention, and I started to believe he wasn't going to completely embarrass himself. At least he was talking about something interesting...

\- DRAGONS!

The shout had come from someone the crowd. Instinctively, I grabbed my axe from the wall of the hall and started giving orders. It was the first time dragons attacked by day, but that wasn't an excuse not to defend ourselves.

\- Take your bow and go to the platforms, shoot at anything that flyes! Warriors, get your weapons and gather next to me!

I looked up in the sky. A single, black dragon flyed slowly in front of us, towards the sea. I didn't recognize the species, but felt relieved that it was alone. While looking closer I noticed something on it's back. My eyes went wide when I saw his face.

\- WE DON'T HAVE TO FIGHT DRAGONS! THEY CAN BE TAMED!

Hiccup had screamed loud enough to reach the whole village. This made everyone fall quiet and stare at the dragon, quittijg their actions. After a couple of seconds, their eyes turned to me. I was frozen and worried as hell for my son, but managed to speak to him with a soft voice, careful not to alert the dragon.

\- Hiccup, get down from there or you die. Gobber, get people ready to shoot it out of the sky, but wait for my signal to fire. Gently.

After a couple of seconds, Hiccup answered, still flying over the village on the dragons back.

\- He won't kill me, since dragons are not aggressive. They're intelligent, gentle creatures, and we should tame them instead of fighting them!

A loud "oh" came from the village, followed by a cloud of whispers. I had a hard time understanding what he was saying, but a part of me got that he wasn't in immediate danger. Yet.

\- What are you talking about?

The dragon was now almost straight above us. Instead od answering, Hiccup spoke to the village with his confident voice.

\- Check this out.

The dragon dove down towards us, picking up speed, and making us running towards the wall of the hall. At the last moment, it pulled up, sweeping just a couple meters above our heads. I recognized the sound, but couldn't remember where it came from. It flew towards the snow covered cliffs, following the coastline very close to the ground. The dragon flew down to the ocean after a barrel roll, cutting some waves with it's wing tips, and accelerating more and more with powerful flaps. Although most of my mind was devoted to fear, a small part of me kept saying "That looks awesome!". Hiccup was holding on to the dragons back when it pulled up into a zoom climb. I noticed a small, empty canoe in the middle of the ocean. Where did that come from? The dragon was hundreds of meters above the water, and dove down towards the boat. I heard the sweeping sound again, and a thought started to build up in my brain. The dragon fired at the canoe, reducing it to ashes with a bright purple explosion. I recognized the explosion immediately, and my heart picked up it's pace. I didn't say anything, but Gobber, who had returned together with five archers, did.

\- It's a night fury!

The whole village turned towards him with a petrified expression, some of them staring from the windows. I had to cool them down before chaos erupted, even tough I was about how far away from calm you could be,

\- Calm down! Even if it is, it hasn't been aggressive so far!

My voice did the trick, and the eyes turned back towards the night fury. It was slowly flying towards us, skimming the dark water. While flying, the dragon's large, green eyes scanned the surface more and more rentlessly as it closed in on Berk. I saw Hiccup leaning down and petting the dragons neck when they came close. The dragon landed on the edge of the cliff, less than twenty meters from us, and I could see strange artificial objects on it's back, where Hiccup was sitting. Hiccup climbed off the night fury and walked in front of it. Gobber touched my shoulder and pointed at the five archers that were aiming at the dragon.

\- Not yet.

I whispered to him. Both Hiccup and the night fury were looking at them, and were nervous, with Hiccup sweating like a wet towel and the dragon doing his best to hide behind him, despite being several times larger.

\- Meet Toothelss, a male night fury I met three weeks ago. You saw the incredible things humans can do if we cooperate with dragons. So, let's stop fighting them and befriend them instead.

Silence. Time seemed to freeze while all eyes turned on me, except the dragons that were turned towards the bows. Finally, I gathered air in my lungs.

\- We decide this in the hall in fifteen minutes, everyone HAS to be there. Hiccup, you get the night fury away from Berk, and then you come to the hall too.

I turned towards the archers.

\- You drop your weapons. Nobody is getting shot today.

**Because of school training, the speed at which chapters come out slows down. A lot. But, there WILL still be updates, between 2/week - 1/month. You don't like this? Then you can either write new chapters yourself or suit yourself. Bye.**


	13. Chapter 13: Politics

**Alright. I'll write the tail-and-saddle-building-and-first-flight part. However, you get this part first because I had already started writing this when I got your review. Enjoy! Also this is the only chapter that will include politics, so don't be scared.**

Fifteen minutes. I had fifteen minutes to understand what the hell was going on and find a solution. If I was going to get rid of that night fury, I had to do it NOW while it still brought status. I grabbed my axe and one of the bows dropped from the archers, and started running behind Hiccup into the forest. I parkoured the forest for about three minutes, looking up every once in a while to make sure not to lose them. Although I was running as fast as I could, flying was faster, and they were getting out of sight quickly. Luckily they landed moments later, and I was able to catch up to them. I didn't run all way up to them of course, but stopped just far enough for them not to notice me. I had become quite good at it in the last weeks.

Hiccup climbed down from the night fury, and petted it's head. I was just close enough to hear him talking.

\- You did great today bud. Now I go back to the village and we'll see how it works out, but I'll come back soon.

Was he seriously talking to a dragon? While I climbed on to a nearby boulder I felt bad for that dragon. Having to stick with Hiccup to survive was possibly the worst torture in the world. I picked up the bow in my right hand. Hopefully it wouldn't have to suffer much longer.

\- And don't worry, it doesn't matter we didn't manage to catch the fish.

Hiccup said while he started walking back to the villafe. Mumbling under his breath he added "Hopefully".

I had pre-planned how to kill that thing to deter Hiccup from trying any tricks, and now that work could come in handy. I repeated the plan to myself. "Get to a high place, arrow to the throat, bombard with the remaining arrows, and wait for it to bleed to death. If things go south use the axe. It can't fly, so climb." I had even practiced my bow skills, and my targeting was on spot.

I looked at the dragon, that had curled up in a ball and started sleeping. Okay, I had a golden opportunity, but I had seen Hiccup flying on that dragon. And flying looked cool. If I came back with a night fury heart, and the night fury Hiccup flew on was gone... No flying for me. And none fot the rest of Berk. Was this really my decision to make?

A deadly nadder landed next to him. "No" I thought, "Not again". It was the exact same dragon that had stopped me from killing Toothelss the first time, stopping me once again. The nadder woke up the night fury, and I noticed a nasty scar on it's nose. The two dragons started making strange sounds towards eachother, pheraps talking. I didn't want to risk going up against two dragons alone, so there was only one option left.

While walking back to the village, I thought about the next move. Flying. I wanted that. Even Hiccup had looked brave for a split second while riding his beast. So, I had to try to convince the village to abandon it's century tradition of killing dragons? Or at least find a compromise. I sighed. I would have to do politcs. I also decided to stop threatening Hiccup, for now. People have a hard time listening to weirdos, and I wanted them to listen to him. I picked up the pace. This wasn't the right time to be late.

I reached the door. There were loud discussion going on inside, and the place was packed with people. Looking around, I saw plenty of familiar faces. I walked into the hall and pushed my way towards the table, next to Fishlegs, that was covered with maps. Skulls of nadders and nightmares watched down at the crowd silently.

\- Alright everybody. Please gather around the table.

Stoick said with his strong voice. People pushed from behind me and the chatting stopped.

\- Hiccup, how about you start by explaining what happened that maxe you ride a night fury?

It was only now that I noticed him, sitting besides his dad.

\- Alright.

Hiccups voice was surprisingly confident. He spoke to Stoick.

\- Remember that night when I told you I had killed a night fury?

\- Yes. What about it?

\- I hadn't killed it, but I had managed to score a hit with my cannon.

Whisper rose from the crowd, but it was quickly silenced by Stoick. Hiccup looked back at the crowd, and I managed to lock eye contact with him. I shook my head. "Do not talk about me" was the message. I didn't want to be part of this if Hiccup (once again) humiliated himself. He started talking again.

\- A couple of days later, I found the night fury on the beach, stuck under the net that I had shot at him. He was so weak he couldn't fire and he had lost his tailfin. I understood that meant he couldn't fly.

"I am the one who noticed the missing tailfin, liar!" came to my mind. Luckily I didn't say it out loud.

\- I was about to kill him, when a thought came to my mind: "this is the best fighter in the world, I should tame it.". It couldn't fly or fire, and I thought that even if it started roaming around, I was sure that it wouldn't be a problem for the great warriors of Berk.

Happy comments rose from the crowd, flattered by Hiccups words. There were several changes in the story he told Berk, probably made to gain support from the crowd. And to seem less like a coward.

\- I built the night fury a new tailfin, and called him Toothless. The fin requires me on it's back to work, so he's almost harmless witouth help. I also brought him food, wich made him quite friendly, and gave him his fire back.

Hiccup took a short break, giving the crowd a moment to think.

\- So, let's stop fighting dragons and use them for good instead.

People started talking more and more loudly. For the first time in centuries, vikings considered not killing dragons. The thought that it was HICCUP that was changing our minds made this even more remarkable. Stoick spoke up.

\- Silence! We're here to decide what to do, so tell us what you think. But please, one at a time!

Immediately, Ulfar Trainsson took the lead. He was one of the oldest members of the village, but still brought down dragons on a regular basis. Something told me he wouldn't be favourable to the idea.

\- We live on an Island, that you can cross in less than five hours. Why would we need the monsters?

A second passed with no one answering, so I had to do it.

\- You know what's better than five hours? With a dragon you could do it in minutes.

Hundreds of faces turned towards me. I wasn't used to speaking to crowds, and had to gather all my self control to avoid .ooking away. Hiccup looked at me surprised, and I nodded back at him. "I'll help you".

Groa Regindotter, an old woman started talking.

\- We have lost far too many people to those dragons. If there is anything we can do that will stop the war, we should do it.

\- How exactly is taming some dragons going to stop the raids?

The man who had talked Spitelout, that was standing next to his son. I looked at Snotlout, that seemed somewhat annoyed. By now there was more and more chatting coming from all around me. Fishlegs spoke up.

\- How about we put food outside the village, so that the dragons take it WITOUTH fighting?

Good old delusional Fishlegs. Ulfar answered back at him.

\- 'Legs, we've already talked about this. Do we have the food? NO.

This time it was Hiccup to answer. It was becoming hard to hear over the ever louder talking that came from all around the hall.

\- Dragons can find their own food! Toothless is great at fishing!

\- So great that you didn't manage to get anything!

Everybody turned towards the voice. It came from Halldis Karison, the strongest, bravest and best known women of Berk, mith me in second place. She even managed to lower the talking down to a few whispers.

\- What are you talking about?

\- You tried and failed to catch fish while flying towards Berk. We saw the dragon's eyes scanning the water and not getting anything. We can't afford giving our precious food to dragons!

So _that_ was what he had been talking about. Other people had realized it too as talking increase once again.

\- Do you like it better when our people die?

Halldis wasn't really the person you wanted to speak up against, but if I wasn't going to do it, nobody would.

\- You know nothing about war, young girl. Keep yourself out of this.

\- Oh, shut the fuck up!

Oh no. I had let my self control off for just a split second and this was the result. A large "ah" formed from the crowd and I wanted to sink into the floor, out of the nervous stares everyone was giving me. However I just grinned and continued.

\- I help you in the raids, and it won't be long before I down a dragon. You know that. But that doesn't mean that the war has to continue, not if we can stop the suffering. My granpa died in the raids less than a month ago. I've seen people die too. I KNOW this war too.

These words seemed to calm down the vikings a little bit.

\- If you really know this war, what do you think we should do?

Oh, gods, I wasn't prepared to this question. She stared at me with her angry and determined expression until 'Legs spoke up, saving me.

\- Wait, I think I've got an idea.

He paused for a few seconds and I saw Ulfar mumbling "not again" under his breath.

\- Hiccup, you said that dragons can be tamed right?

Hiccup smiled and nodded. How did he managed to look so calm?

\- Yes they can.

\- We don't have the food for all of them, so we tame just a few, pheraps two of three, and use them as frontline soldiers during the raids.

Fishlegs seemed to be enthusiastic about his idea, and talked faster and faster.

\- Since DRAGONS face the raid, no vikings are lost, and since only a few of them are tamed, we keep enough food for everybody. We might even gain food, since not as much will be raided.

Stoick looked at the young viking besides me, interested. In fact almost everyone was giving him their full attention.

\- You want to tame dragons to defend against the raids?

\- You get it chief!

A crooked smile formed on Stoick's lips.

\- Sounds like a good idea, what do the rest of you think?

A bunch of "yeah!" and "that's great!" came from the crowd. Stoick's smile grew and he nodded.. 'Legs had plenty of such ideas, but the sucess rate was low. But if the chief himself found it appealing... Hiccup nervously spoke up, although his worlds were hard to hear in the swarm of approval.

\- Hold on! Dragons can become friendly, but I don't know if they be turned into war-machines!

Nobody seemed to notice his objection, except 'Legs who answered by "we can always try". It took Stoick's voice to calm down Berk again. After a few more minutes of talking Stoick took charge.

\- It's decided, we'll try to use dragons to protect ourselves against dragons!

This was immediatly met by applause. After the sound had wared off he continued.

\- Fishlegs Ingerman, this was your idea, so you decide what we name this.

The viking was almost jumping up and down of excitement by now, but he managed to pull together when he answered.

\- I'd like to name it after my friend Baldhead Hallisson. He died in one of the raids. Hopefully, thanks to this, no more vikings will suffer the same fate.

Stoick nodded.

\- So what's the name?

\- How about "Operation Baldhead"?

**This is NOT the end of the fanfic. Finally you know were the name comes from. Bye-bye**


	14. Chapter 14: Grounded

**Today we meet one of your favorite dragons. Give her a warm welcome!**

\- Is everyone on with the capture plan?

\- Just one thing. Dragons have pretty good smell, at least Toothelss does, so maybe we hide downwind?

Stoick nodded, satisfied, while the rest of the group gave me uncomfortable stares. _I_ was the dragon rider, and if

they wanted to get their hands on their own dragons they needed me. And this was obviously bothering them.

\- Alright Hiccup, now it's your turn. How do we tame the dragon once we captured it?

I looked over at the group. There was Stoick and Spitelout, two of the village's best warriors, because the trapping part would require some fighting. Astrid was in because she couldn't stand me flying when she couldn't, which had pulled in Halldis in their competition. Fishlegs was in because this was his idea, after all. Lastly, Snotlout didn't want to be left out of the fun. I walked in front of them and pulled the dagger from the sheath. I held it menacingly in the air.

\- First thing first, if someone was running at you with a knife like this, what would you do?

The answers were a mix of different methods of killing, from arrows to swords to thrown axes.

\- You get the point, you'll fight back. And the same is true for dragons. The only difference is that since they don't have weapons, they'll try burning you to death instead.

I sheated back the dagger. The looks I received were focused but were slipping towards bored. Was I really so annoying to listen to?

\- And that's the secret. If you're a threat, the dragons fight or flight will kick in, and any connection is impossible. So, DON'T be dangerous. NO screaming, NO sudden movements and NO weapons. The advantage is that the dragon won't try to kill you either.

Apart from Stoick that didn't blink, they looked shocked. Thinking about it, it must have felt like being given a death sentence. Spitelout, spoke up nervously.

\- You-you want us to give up every way to defend ourselves? And trust the DRAGONS not to kill us?

\- Yeah. That's how you gain a dragon's trust.

After an awkwardly long time witouth a word I understood they weren't gonna take it.

\- I mean, you don't have to be completely defenceless. Shields can't be used to hurt the creatures, and we can have hidden archers. But, the less of a threat you are the more the dragons like you. They aren't horses that will run forwards when you kick them.

They calmed down a bit, but more convincing was needed. I looked over at the small pile of fish. At any moment a dragon could fly here and start eating the bait, and if they didn't learn how to deal with the beasts by then...

\- Then, why do they attack first in the raids? We aren't armed in those first few seconds.

I looked over to Astrid. She had a mix of curiosity, doubt and focus on her face.

\- Every second they delay our warriors might save this lives. And from what I've seen by Toothelss, they should be intelligent enough to know that.

By this time what I told wasn't really knowledge. I was just making guesses based on my experiences with my night fury. I hoped that would be enough.

\- Next step is gaining trust and support, so you bond to the dragons one to one. It's much easier to convince a dragon that you are a friend than that all vikings are.

\- So it's always the same person that rides on the same dragon?

\- It's always the same person that rides and takes care same dragon. So, yeah.

I looked back to the group.

\- Now how do you make a dragon like you? Any suggestions?

Okay, being the expert was fun. I couldn't remember the last time so many people had listened to me for so long.

\- You treat them _good_ and _kindly_. Every dragon has probably his or her own favourite food and things to do. For Toothless that's fish, flying and scale scratches, but find what works for your dragon.

I realized something. We had agreed to tame three dragons included Toothelss for the defence force. So the largest part of the group would be left empty handed. I took the grass out of the pocket..

\- Last thing: dragon love this plant scratching their skin with this, maybe 'cause it helps against parasites. Anyways, it can be found in a few places on the island so use it. More questions?

It wasn't even noon when we sat down, hidden behind some bushes. We were on a beach about three kilometres from the village, far enough for dragons to dare reaching here but close enough to be able to get back quickly. After the big meeting the group had been put together to transform Operation Baldhead into practice. We divided the plan into three phases. Getting dragons, getting dragons stop trying to kill us and getting dragons to defend the village against the raids. Right now we had set up a pile of fish as bait and were waiting to start phase one.

A lone gronkle appeared in the sky accompanied by the familiar buzzing sound of the wings. The dragon hovered curiously around the pile before landing and starting the meal. We exchanged a few glances to make sure everyone was on before Stoick gave the signal, quietly.

\- Three, two one, throw.

Spitelout, Halldis and Astrid threw the nets wide open into the air, that were held open by spinning weights. The gronkle had barely enough time to blink before the nets hit, two of them on the wing and one on the tail. The dragon attempted to fly off only to fall on it's side.

\- It's stuck! Go, go, go!

I ran up behind the gronkle carrying the rope and shield. Stoick, Snot and Gustav did the same, while the net throwers had to pick up their own ropes before joining us. Our task now was simple: knot whatever you can until the beasts is immobilized. Fisglegs was first on the spot.

\- I got the wings!

\- I'll take the tail!

I was the one that had said "no screaming", so I got a bit mad at myself. I quickly pushed the ropes in front of the hind legs and over the tail before pulling the knot together. The dragon was trashing around but not too aggressively. It was less than Toothless when I was threatening him with the knife. As soon as the knot was ready, I walked up in front of the dragon, after making sure that the mouth was well shut.

\- I calm it down now.

After a split second of confusion, Stoick gave me the go. I looked at the creature in the eyes, but it was too busy trashing to notice me. I tried sounding as reassuring as possible.

\- Calm down. We're not trying to hurt you.

The dragon gave me a few curios glances. The rest of the group was now catching up with more ropes.

\- Look at me. It's all gonna be fine. Don't worry.

To everybody's surprise, the dragons movements stopped while it looked at me. The dragon looked scared, but there was a mix of curiosity in there. I moved my hand towards the nose.

\- Yes, that's good. Keep like that. It's all gonna be fine.

My hand touched the rough scales on the gronkle's snout, making the creature shiver slightly. But soon enough, it relaxed under my touch. A few seconds later I heard Snot's voice.

\- And we're done!

I pointed a finger at him.

\- What did I say about being loud?

\- Okay, phase one is done! what have we got?

Halldis answered to him, while I looked over at the beast. It looked afraid and a bit angry. An absolutely perfect and helpful mood for something you were trying to tame.

\- The gronkle can't move but is unharmed, and so are we. Good job everybody!

\- Is it male or female?

By now I had got used it the strange looks they gave me. It was Spitelout to answer.

\- Uhh, I think female.

Astrid confirmed his words.

\- Should we find a name for her?

\- You wanna name that lug of meat?

\- Snot, do you even know what lug means?

His face immediately turned red.

\- Yes I do! It's a large amount of something!

We burst into laughter at the poor teen. We would have to face more challenges in the future, but right now a bit of fun wasn't that bad.

\- Is it now that we cut in the wing?

My head snapped at my dad.

\- WHAT?!

If he was surprised over my raise in voice he didn't show it.

\- We cut in the wings and build a replacement that needs humans to work. Wasn't that the plan?

\- Why would you do that?!

\- So that the dragons have to trust us? Isn't that how you managed to tame the night fury?

I watched him incredulously. After all the effort I put in earning Toothelss' trust...

\- You think that Toothless listens to me just because he needs me?

\- Um, yeah? Come on, I can't be the only one that thought of this. He needs you to survive.

Just about everyone in the group confirmed his belief, leaving me staring in disbelief.

\- You're wrong. You're all wrong. That's not the reason he's following me.

\- Then why?

There was a change in Stoick's voice and I could tell his patience was running low. I hadn't really thought that all the changes Berk did had to go through him. And I had just caused lots of change.

\- Friendship and loyalty. _That_ is how to you train dragon.

There was an uncomfortably long silence. I could feel everyone staring at me like if I was a madman.

\- Aww, you've found a friend. Isn't my little cousin cute?

They burst into laughter, at me this time. "damn you Snot" was the only thing I could think of. Even Stoick was amused, and I could see his self control was fighting hard for stopping him from laughing at his own son.

\- You're gonna handicap the dragons for life!

\- And why exactly is _that_ a problem?

They didn't stop laughing. My mind started to wander towards effective ways to burn a village to the ground.

\- You don't know the first thing about dragons! But _I_ do. So we're taming her my way or we're not taming her at all.

Stoick let out an exasperated groan.

\- You grounded the dragon and gave him his flight back. _That_ is your way. And since your way worked, we're gonna use it. Are you gonna help us or not?

I weighed the options. Witouth my help it would probably take months for the defence force to be completed, and that poor gronke would _not_ enjoy the process.

\- She is going to hate the person that grounds her. So that person is going in alone and has to accept that you will never be able to ride the _lug of meat_.

Stoick nodded, satisfied. After a couple seconds Spitelout took a step forwards.

\- I'll do it. Where do I have to cut?

I looked over at the gronkle. The wings were tiny for a dragon, so cutting off a small part would be sufficient. I tought back to the wound on Toothless' tail.

\- Cut the skin between two... fingers? What are the thick parts on the wing called? One side should be sufficient to stop her from flying. But you won't be able to ride her if you do. Are you sure?

Spitelout nodded and started to walk off.

\- I don't think it's possible for dragons to hate me more than they already do.

We watched as Spitelout walked towards the immobilized gronkle. If she looked afraid earlier it was nothing in comparison to her expression when Spitelout walked towards her and climbed on top of her body. He took out a dagger, similar to mine, and witouth warning pushed it down in the left wing. The dragon trashed around as hard as the ropes allowed witouth effect. After half a minute a flap of skin fell on the ground, soaked in blood. The wound in the wing was still open. Spitelout jumped off her back and walked back towards us.

\- What now?

\- Does anyone has bandage? If we help her it will be easier for her to help us back.

Even tough they had planned to ground the dragon, noone had thought of bringing something to heal the wound. After a couple seconds it was Astrid that the took initiative.

\- Maybe I've got something.

She took off her coat and ripped a piece off using her kinfe. When she was done she gave me the strip of fur and put on what was left of the cloth.

\- I cleaned it this morning, so it shouldn't get infected. Is it enough or do we need more?

It took me a moment to understand what had happened.

\- Aren't you gonna freeze?

She rolled her eyes.

It was up to me, 'Legs and Astrid to get that wound cleaned. We didn't use more people not to scare her too much, but since a single viking had been enough to ground her for life, I had doubts of how much it actually helped.

\- I know it hurts girl. We're gonna help you.

I walked up in front of the gronkle and started scratching her skin. The dragon seemed to relax a bit, and slowed down her trashing. Until Astrid climbed on her.

\- She's a friend, don't worry.

The poor creature turned her head as much as the ropes allowed, and looked at Astrid with pleading eyes. The viking had soaked up a piece of cloth using water from a flask, and proceeded to drag it along the wound. A shiver came from the dragon below her.

\- 'Lout did a good job, it's a clean cut. She didn't even lose that much blood.

The gronkle whined as Astrid cleaned the last of the blood. She threw the now deep red cloth on the ground, and started putting on the bandages.

\- See? We're helping you.

\- We should get back to Berk. And we should get her there too.

I looked at Fishlegs, not letting up the scratching.

\- Why?

\- It's gonna get dark in a few hours. Plus, we'd have to walk over half an hour to do anything if you want to keep her here.

\- And how exactly do you plan to move two tons of flightless dragon?

We turned towards Astrid. She was almost done with the bandage, that had only a little bit of red on it. I thought back to what I had done with Toothless.

\- I might have an idea.

After a few minutes we had removed the nets and only the ropes were keeping the dragon still.

\- Are you sure this will work?

\- Pretty sure. Plus, we keep the mouth bound.

\- Fine. Here goes nothing.

Standing at both sides of the gronkle, Astrid and Olof proceeded to cut using their knives. In a couple seconds all but one of the ropes were on the ground, and the gronkle stood up. Stoick and Halldis looked at the scene from the wood, bows tense in case things started to go south.

\- Do you mind following us?

The dragon looked at me suspiciously. She carefully flapped her left wing and her face turned to horror.

\- It's Spitelout's fault. We're gonna help you instead.

I took out the fish.

\- If you follow us you get food.

It took her half a minute of and repeated glances us, wings and the fish to make a decision. The dragon started walking towards me. I wanted to shout "Ha! What did I tell you?" but I remembered the "no screaming rule".

\- It's working.

The track home was _long_. The excitement for the fish wore off soon once she realized her mouth was locked shut, so the only thing that made her go forwards was the tiny amount of trust we had gained by cleaning the wound. This and the fact Stoick insisted to we had to keep hidden archers meant that we moved excruciatingly slow. By the time we reached the village it was almost dark. Dozens of eyes turned towards us as we entered the village with what had to be killed on sight this morning. Snotlout welcomed us and led us to the structure where the gronkle would be housed. He had come back with his dad after grounding the creature to build something we could put it. With only about three hours of time to work I doubted the result would be... pretty.

\- What have we got?

Snotlout showed a smile.

\- It's flightless, so we don't need a roof. We've already put some fish in there. What do you think?

I looked at the structure. My expectations were already low, but they had somehow managed to take it one step further. A hole in the ground with a couple of fish thrown in there. Probably made from an existing hole that had just been dug wider. Astrid didn't seem to mind how the dragon would be kept.

\- How do we get her in there?

\- We had been thinking of a ramp, but that's not done yet, sooo...

The gronkle looked at what would be her new home, and at the fish in it. Maybe for a dragon it wasn't too bad? I noticed the glances everybody was exchanging.

\- Three, two, one, GO!

I looked over to see the group, save for me and Fishegs, charging shoulder first into the poor creature. She fell into the hole with a thump. Laughter came from them.

\- We forgot to unbound the mouth!

They stopped for a few seconds. Then Halldis said "nothing we can do about it now" and went back to joking.

\- I know you're all tired and want to go home, but I want to say a couple things first.

Stoick had gathered us for a briefing to end the day.

\- We did great work today getting the _lug of meat_, but there's a lot left to do. We need to capture one more dragon and train them for defence, and I doubt that will be easy.

\- But we'll make it because we're vikings!

How did Snot manage to have so much energy?

\- Exactly. Also, Hiccup, we need to train the night fury too. Can you get him here tomorrow?

\- I'll do.

We were sent home moments after, but I stopped back at the hole. The fish were scattered on the ground from the gronkle's repeated flight attempts. Another loud thump could be heard when she inevitably fell back down in the mud.

I walked back home pondering if I should eat something before crashing in my bed or not. Unfortunately, my father had other plans.

\- We need to talk.

I hadn't even stepped indoors when he said that. I sighed.

\- Is this about the night fury?

\- No, it's because you still haven't learned all the ancestors of the Haddock family.

I could feel he was irritated. He was sitting on a chair in the dining room. I sat down in front of him.

\- So let me get things straight...

\- Show me what you got.

After an annoyed glance he went back to talking.

\- You shot down a night fury, found it, spared it, flew on it and showed it off to a village where killing dragons is how you measure status?

The accusative tone could not be mistaken. But since it was the truth, I'd have to stand up for my actions.

\- Yeah.

\- Why?

\- I wanted to help this village.

It was a lie. The best for Berk had been the very last thing on my mind when I had kept the knife out of Toothless' neck. He gave me a suspicious look, so I tried to sell it better.

\- The times I tried to fight the beasts I ended up almost helping them, so I thought tha

\- You think I can't tell when you're lying?!

His fist slamming into the table caught me by surprise. The glance he gave me afterwards made it clear he was clean out of patience.

\- I don't know! It just kinda, happened? He was wounded, he was suffering, he was afraid and...

I waited a second before continuing the sentence. Stoick would not be happy.

\- It felt like the right thing to do.

Stoick squeezed his eyes shut, hard. It took half a minute before any more sound got out of him.

\- You did something that went against what everyone has ever said... because you believed it was right?

I had to admit. This sounded a lot better than "I freed the enemy because I didn't want a fifteen year old girl to kill him and get the status".

\- You've done the same thing.

I could tell these words had hit him hard. With about thirty years of ruling some of his decisions had been unpopular. Sometimes they payed off, sometimes not.

\- Fine. I respect your decision. But can you tell your moral compass to stop trying to kill everybody?

\- Dragons on our side will help the village.

\- I hope so.

I was dead tired. But there was something I wanted to talk about too.

\- Don't you think this seems kinda... rushed?

He raised an eyebrow.

\- What do you mean?

\- I mean, I show off Toothless, and in the same day we decide to use dragons as a defence weapon. So we go out and find a gronkle, ground it, and throw it into a hole, witouth taking the time to be sure that we're doing the right thing. And tomorrow you want to get the dragon battle ready with basically no plan?

Stoick nodded calmly.

\- Maybe it's rushed. But time is a luxury we can't afford right now.

Uhh, what was he talking about now? After seeing my confused expression he started explaining.

\- A raid could come this night. And this year, they're getting hard to counter. We can't afford the lives and food lost much longer. So we'll do just about anything that helps. And if that means rushing things to get a dragon defence force up and running, so be it.

I didn't think things had gotten this desperate. But maybe I should've understood when seeing the ever emptpier pantry or the ever more common funerals.

\- What if the lack of planning backfires?

\- That's a risk we have to take. Plus, you've tamed one dragon. Even with your help, how much planning can we really do?

I managed to get my shoes off before I crashed into the bed. Today had not gone as anticipated and I had plenty of things to worry about. But the old yak furs had never been softer.

\- GET UP!

What? I managed to give away a "hmm".

\- You're lucky. Next step would be an water bucket.

Dad. Dad wanted me to get up.

\- Wh-what time is it?

\- Time for you to get Toothless to berk. A gronkle is strong, but "the best fighter in the world" is stronger. There's already enough light to see where you're going.

I groaned. Could you _never_ catch a break?

**I hope you gave her a warm welcome, because Berk sure didn't. Also, so****mebody asked if there would be hiccstrid in this fic. Answer: probably not. If this makes you sad you should read one of the 1800 hiccstrid fics on this site. Over 200 of them are M rated ;). The reason is (among other) that Hiccup hasn't grown up into a sex god yet. Also I can't write lemon because this fic is T rated and I don't like waterboarding. Hope you've had a happy new year and see you next time!**


	15. Chapter 15: Flight

\- Where's Hiccup?

\- Never where he should be.

I was starting to get tired of Snotlout's constant comments. Stoick, Spitelout, Astrid and Halldis were already waiting by the gronkle's den. But how were we supposed to tame the creature without the dragon rider's help? Stoick explained why he wasn't here.

\- Hiccup's getting the night fury here. He should arrive at any moment.

I looked down in the hole. The dragon was lying on the ground and didn't move.

\- I saw the meatlug breathing earlier, so don't worry. Or maybe worry, that's up to you.

\- Aw, come on! Is that really gonna catch?

Ignoring Snotlout, I continued to stare. The whole dragon was drenched in mud.

\- Are ya looking for something?

A tired looking Gobber walked up to us, a strange contraption in his hook. Stoick started explaining, but as soon cut off by the blacksmith.

\- I told him to work on something to get the dragon flying after you left yesterday...

\- And forced me into a crafting all nighter of something that hadn't even been thought of one month ago. Behold! The result of my mead-powered effort!

That last statement wasn't reassuring, but it explained why his nose was so red.

\- Pay attention kids. A bit of leather latched in the wing's hole should be enough to make your beast fly. Ya latch it in the wing. See this red mark I made? It has to be upwards or you're doing downwards. Last thing, ya pull this rope to get the whole thing off. So I suggest ya don't use it in flight.

His explanation left some of us dubious.

\- How...

\- Now if you lads excuse me, I'm off to bed. See ya!

The next hour was an unproductive slog. After a few failed attempts to remove the ropes bounding the mouth, it was my turn to try. To everybody's surprise, the gronkle didn't charge at me when I walked down the ladder. I cut the rope, finally allowing the creature to devour the now half rotten fish. Unfortunately, this meant that our dragon was now energetic and fully capable of firing at us. After a few fiery close calls we gave up and accepted we couldn't do something before Hiccup came back.

\- DRAGONS!!!

I was chatting calmly with Snotlout when the shout made us leap up. I looked around for anything to defend myself with, as did the others. In less than two seconds Astrid was turning her head wildly into the sky, axe held tightly in her right hand and legs tense ready to bounce at a moment's notice.

\- False alarm! Go back to your posts!

If there was anything that could calm down hundreds of battle-ready vikings it was Stoick's order. But that didn't leave the fact that a black dragon was flying overhead, carrying something on It's back. It didn't take much effort to see what was going on. Thinking back, it was obvious that this wasn't a raid, in the middle of the morning when someone was supposed to bring a dragon here. But the reflex learned in the endless raids was hard to forget.

\- I can't even bring a little night fury here without you panicking?

\- Stop causing heart attacks!

Ignoring his dad's words, Hiccup and Toothless looped over Berk before landing about ten meters from us. As much chaos at it was causing, dragon riding seemed to be the most incredible thing ever. And maybe the most useful too.

\- They're friends Toothless. Don't be afraid of them.

Hiccup was worried about his dragon. Because of course he was. Seeing the black dragon gave me chills, but apparently he was afraid of us too.

\- The unholy offspring of lighting and death itself. You're welcome.

For some reason the bitter sarcasm was still in his voice. I was starting to believe he wasn't so keen on the whole "dragons for defence" thing.

\- Can you explain why the gronkle has been a little asshole all morning, except towards Fishlegs?

As usual, Astrid was cutting straight to the point.

\- Oh no, how could that possibly happen?

I raised an eyebrow. How where we supposed to know?

\- What do you mean?

\- You haven't exactly been nice to her, despite what I told you.

Awkward and somewhat guilty glances were exchanged among us.

\- So Meatlug is a lost cause?

I guessed this meant we had officially found a name. Hiccup was busy scratching the night fury behind his ears, but stopped to stroke his chin, making the dragon whine in complaint.

\- Probably not, trust can be gained back. Legs' should be the one to ride her.

I took a step back. Nobody had told me I would have to go on a beast.

\- Why me?

\- Because you didn't push her into a hole yesterday. You're the one she trust the most.

After a few intense minutes of arguing I was chosen, mostly because we didn't have the time to make her trust anyone else. Toothless had watched us curiously from Hiccup's side the entire time.

\- Fine. I'll ride her. How do I do?

\- You've got the prosthetic?

\- Yeah, here.

Hiccup took the machine and turned it a few times in his hands, seemingly understanding how it worked, something none of us had done in the last hour. All that work in the forge must have helped.

\- Alright, let's go put it on. We also need something Meatlug can eat.

Spitelout walked away looking for fish, and in the meantime Hiccup insisted that we met Toothless. For some reason he wanted me to go first. Was this the thanks I got for being the only viking that wasn't a jerk to him?

\- And you're saying he will come to me if I hold my hand like this?

\- Yes don't worry. Now look away.

I had a lot of complaints but still did as he said. Soon I could feel the hot breath on my hand, and after a few seconds that seemed to last ages I felt the night fury's snout. I had expected it to be as hard and scaly as the rest of the dragon, but it's nose was soft, and even slightly wet. I looked over at the night fury and saw that his eyes were closed. He trusted me enough to get vulnerable, and that was simply amazing. The started faces of the others told me they thought it as well. Sadly that contact was broken when Spitelout announced he was back. Without further talk, Hiccup gave me a fish and dragged me towards the gronkle's hole. He left his night fury unguarded.

\- Are you just gonna leave Toothless here?!

Hiccup sighed at Snotlout's comment. This was going to be a long day.

\- How can you have a night fury fighting at your side if you can't have a night fury at your side? You know what, you befriend him while we take care of Meatlug. Just do the same thing as Legs'.

And then he walked down the ladder. To the dragon that had tried to burn the last person that walked down there. We immediately sprinted to the side of the hole, just to see Hiccup calmly petting the creature's scales.

\- Fishlegs, are you coming?

\- How did you do that?!

After hearing me the dragon looked up and saw me. And everyone else too. She started growling aggressively and walked back into a defensive stance. Hiccup spoke really calmly to cool her down, but the words weren't for the dragon.

\- Everybody but Fishlegs, get the fuck away from Meatlug.

They got the hint and walked away from the hole, and the dragon immediately calmed down.

\- Are you coming?

I finally ignored my fear and walked down the ladder. With two vikings and a dragon there wasn't much space left.

\- Give her the fish.

I did as he said. The gronkle gulped down the cod as soon as it came within reach for her slimy pink tongue. My hand touched Meatug's snout in the process. She burped happily.

\- You're already becoming friends! Now, see if you can cool her down enough for me to put the prosthetic on?

Using gentle words, scratches and some dragon grass that Hiccup had given me, we managed to calm the dragon down enough for her not to leap anyone that came near the wound on her wing. Finally, after mud had officially covered everything we owned, the contraption was on.

\- Sooo… what do we do now?

\- You climb on and fly her.

\- Just like that?

\- Just like that.

He gave me the prosthetic's rope that I, after a moment of hesitation, attached to my wrist. I started to doubt my own idea. Sure, dragons fighting for us would've helped, but turning the beasts against each other wasn't as straight forward as I had thought.

\- And when I get on… how do I steer?

He gave a small chuckle. There were high odds that I'd die in the next few minutes and he was laughing?

\- You pull the rope when you want to stop the flight and… that's it actually. Have fun!

If my heart beat was fast before it was nothing in comparison to now.

\- There's nothing I can do to control her?!

The gronkle stirred at the same time as I raised my voice and I made a mental note not to repeat that mistake.

\- It's a prosthetic wing, not a tail. So you have to communicate with the dragon to get where you want.

\- Great, there's nothing that can possibly go wrong with that.

\- Perfect, let's get you in the air.

Normally I felt bad for Hiccup with everything the other teens did. But right now I wanted to punch him in the face.

\- He's gonna climb on you. Stay calm, he's not dangerous.

I stopped petting the side, and took a big breath, reaching up to the wing to climb. But despite everything, I didn't want to die.

\- I'm not doing it.

\- Listen. Are you gonna stop the dying or not?

\- I don't want to die!

\- How many times do I have to say this? They're not dangerous. Right Meatlug?

The creature purred gently under Hiccup's hand but this didn't count the fact of the hundreds of people we had lost to the beasts. For a moment I was ready give up Operation Baldhead for good. But I missed the good old Baldhead. And his death really wasn't fair. I had to stop this.

\- Yolo.

I climbed on. And although the dragon tensed up, she didn't slam me in the wall as I had feared. Hiccup gave me the final instructions, before doing the same with the gronkle.

\- Fly where he tells you to ok? We've put on a prosthetic so you can fly.

I didn't even have the time to pray to Thor before the wings started flapping, carefully. She probably wanted to check if the prosthetic could really make her fly.

\- Meatlug, fly out of the hole.

The wings' flapping sped up, and air flowed around me. The prosthetic seemed to hold. And then we flew up. In a few seconds we were out of the hole. With the heart beating itself out of the chest, I couldn't believe this was working. That's when Mealug caught sight of the group, and Spitelout.

In the split second that it lasted I saw that they were all tensed up and hesitatingly standing and about five meters from the night fury, that looked somewhat bored. The next thing I saw was the world spinning, as the gronkle turned around and started flying away from them as fast as she could, bringing us over the ocean. Soon we were dangerously high, removing the only control I had over the flight. I couldn't remove the prosthetic without falling to my death. Gronkles were one of the slowest dragons we knew, but right now it didn't seem true. I latched myself onto her head to not fall down.

\- Meatlug… calm down…

That was all I managed to get away as we flew over the ocean, ever higher and further away from home.

\- Tell her to turn around!

I looked around and saw Hiccup riding on Toothless, flying towards us. I had never felt so happy from seeing a night fury. Doing as he said, I got the gronkle's attention and pointed back to Berk. But of course that didn't work.

\- Can you show them the way back bud?

Meatlug stopped mid air as the night fury flew head on towards her roaring. They turned and narrowly missed us, but that was enough to scare the creature to death. Perhaps this wasn't such a bad thing. I tried speaking firmly.

\- Meatlug. Fly back now and nobody is going to hurt you.

My words combined with gentle petting and a very persuasive black dragon made her finally turn around and fly back towards the island. Hiccup had said "they aren't horses that will fly forwards when you kick them". But threatening to kick them seemed to work.

Now calmer, I took a moment to watch around me. After all, flying wasn't something that happened every day (yet). The clouds seemed closer than ever. They were moving fast, so a storm was coming. Apart from the clouds everything looked so… tiny from up here. The large waves of the ocean seemed smaller than the tiniest rings in a cup of water, and Berk was just a speck in the distance. But as we got closer, more and more buildings became visible, and so did we.

\- DRAGONS!!!

From out here the shout was barely audible. Meatlug stirred from the sound, but kept flying forwards. Soon Stoick's voice could be heard, and as we got closer we could distinguish words.

\- … so shout RAID if it's a RAID and if it's not shout NOTHING! You DON'T shout if there isn't a RAID!

I chuckled. Finally we wouldn't have our ears broken.

\- I think that she got scared after seeing Spite', didn't she?

I took my eyes off the village to look at Hiccup.

\- Uhh, yeah, I think. But she doesn't exactly like the rest of them either.

\- I make sure they won't bother us. You land somewhere safe.

\- Got it.

The night fury and his rider flew off towards Berk and I locked my eyes on a nice frozen plain overseeing the village.

\- See that Meatlug? Try landing there.

Even though she hadn't five minutes ago, the dragon decided to listen to me and flew there, and I let out a sigh of relief. I'd get to live another day.

We went in for landing and touched the ground smoothly. As soon as the wings stopped flapping I pulled the control rope. The dragon made a screech of pain as the contraption snapped of her wing, but we couldn't afford our dragons escaping.

\- That. was. Awesome. What did you think Meatlug?

According sound the creature made she didn't share my opinion. Hiccup could be heard basically scolding the others as I climbed off her back. A few minutes later he arrived to the plain holding two trouts and with a night fury in tow. I took one and handed it over to Meatlug, who swallowed the thing in record time. I looked over at Hiccup that was getting properly soaked in by Toothless' tongue.

\- If it's gonna be like this every time I'll stop feeding you!

\- Really? He licks you every time?

\- Yeah, a nice little habit he picked up lately! And that's making me run out of things to wear!

I tried petting my own dragon, but she took a step back when I raised my hand. It was only after more calming talk that she let me pet her snout. I hoped she would get friendlier over time.

\- Where did the others go?

\- Out of here. I think they wanted to find another dragon before sunset.

\- You trust them not to scare the thing to death?

The break that followed my question was far too long to be comfortable.

\- I mean… they're smart guys right?

I decided not to think about it, and went back to petting the gronkle. But then another fear came back to my mind.

\- Hiccup, I'm scared.

The small teen groaned.

\- Dragons. Are not. Dangerous. How many times do I have to tell you?

\- That's not what I'm afraid of.

\- What is it then?

Talking about your fears was humiliating in viking culture, but Hiccup was the one person that wouldn't judge me.

\- We're supposed to ride the beasts against raiding dragons that will be outnumbering us about ten to one. It's not that I see plenty of ways that can go wrong, I don't see one way this can go right!

He chuckled.

\- Who was it that came up with "dragons to fight dragons"?

\- Oh, shut up. Sorry I trusted you not to mock me.

\- "This is war babe. What else was I gonna do?"

Gobber had answered with these words when the chief had asked why the smith had melted the bronze dragon head in the front of our flagship into axes. Ever since that nobody missed the opportunity to repeat them in Gobbers teasing tone. He was pissing me off. Couldn't he just help me?

\- Just... shut up.

\- You want to live?

\- Yes!

He picked up the prosthetic from the ground and walked towards Meatlug, giving me a daring smile. This couldn't be happening. I was not going on the gronkle's back again.

\- Then you need more training. There's gonna be a storm soon, so I suggest you practice now.

\- Oh, you son of a

**In case you didn't get it, this chapter is written from Fishlegs' POV. I'll try to get the next chapter soon, where we meet another one of the teens' dragons. Can you guess wich? Leave a review and see you next time!**


	16. Chapter 16: Soldiers

One thing: storms were awesome. If you weren't a coward and actually flew in the storm clouds you not only got very hard to see, but also very fast thanks to the high wind speed at those altitudes. So here I was, flying as fast as a night fury just below the clouds looking for something to eat. Now that food was getting really scarce, this was pretty much the only way to get something. I had been flying all day and only found seagulls. But not now it seemed like fate had finally smiled on me.

For some reason there was a small pile of fish sitting on a beach. Maybe it had been left there by a bird of prey or another dragon, but it didn't matter. I'd just go in, eat and disappear back into the clouds. I dove down quickly downed the closest fish, that happened to be a saumon. Reindeers tasted better, but I wasn't going to complain about that.

\- EY!!

Five nets were flying towards me. I didn't even gave the time to blink before they were reaching across me. My wings and tail immediately got tangled.

\- Get these off me!

I tried to run away. I didn't know where or how or why, but I had to get out of here. Someone had to have thrown these nets, and I didn't want to go anywhere near them. But one of the nets had gotten stuck on my leg, so I fell to my side. While struggling to get up I noticed four bulky vikings running towards me. I didn't know there were humans on this island. This was bad.

I tried to crawl away, and even managed to move a little bit. But they were running fast, and soon they started throwing ropes around my body. I tried to launch spikes at them but the tail was stuck and the spikes simply fell to the ground. It didn't take long before I was completely immobilized. They had even bounded my mouth shut so I couldn't simply roast them. That's when I saw the dagger one of the Vikings had. Moments later it was embedded in my wing. I was in shock.

\- Stop it… please…

It completely ignored my request and kept dragging the dagger further and further across the wing. Dragon wings were very sensitive because they were vital to survive, and I roared in pain. It felt like every muscle in my body was burning from all my effort to escape the ropes. But the knots held and I could only watch as a piece of skin that had previously been on my wing fell to the ground. A large part of the wing area was gone, meaning that even if I had managed to escape the ropes I wouldn't be able to fly. I was grounded. Or, in dragon language, I was dead.

After that the three vikings left without so much as glancing at me ad they did so. They had gone through all this effort to doom me and now they wouldn't even finish me off? I didn't know how much time passed after that. It couldn't have been to long as the sky hadn't begun to darken but it felt like years. That's when I caught sight of a small human, watching me from some bushes.

It was tiny, obviously a female. But she couldn't be too old either. Though she had surprisingly visible muscles. What was a female hatching doing here? The girl locked eye contact with me and started walking closer. A sack was hanging from her shouted and she had a dagger attached to some piece of clothing. Were they sending a hatchling to kill me? But then she spoke, and though I didn't understand the words the tone was kind, as if she wanted to help me.

\- Who are you?

She kept speaking gently as she picked up some straps of fur from a sack and soaked it with water from a flask. Before I knew it she had climbed on me and was stroking the piece of fur on the wound in my wing.

\- Stop it! It burns!

She stopped what she was doing to look at me. Her sad eyes seemed to say "I'm sorry". Soon I understood what she was doing. She was trying to clean the wound to stop it from getting infected. With the dirty metal blade of the dagger this was a real risk. So I grinned and let her continue. Not that I had much choice anyways.

I had no idea why she was doing this. Dragons' understanding of humans was very limited. There were loads of rumors, but since they often completely contradicted each other it was impossible to know the truth. One thing was certain tough. Three words that had been told by parents to their hatchlings since anyone could remember, and would be told for years to come. And it was that "humans are complicated".

Soon she was back in front of me and had taken out the dagger. I instinctively tried to back off, without success. But when she used the dagger she didn't stab me. She cut the ropes.

\- What are you doing?

As soon as I was free I jumped back from that hatchlings, almost whacking my tail into her head in the process. Just because she had freed me it didn't mean I had to keep myself in range of her dagger. Seemingly unaffected by the near miss, the viking took a ĺarge cod out of her sack and held it in front of me. The three bulky vikings had taken the pile with them when leaving, so there wasn't any more food around. I was starting to like this girl.

I carefully grabbed the fish from her hands and immediately jumped back to a safe distance. As much as I wanted to trust her it just wasn't safe to approach a human with a dagger. As if she understood my thoughts, the viking did something I didn't know was possible. She threw the dagger into the sand, leaving herself helpless.

\- What… what are you doing?

The girl held up her hand in front of her, as if she wanted me to touch her. I examined the wound. The blood had been cleaned and a white bandage had been placed on top. This viking had really helped me. Maybe she deserved this.

I let my snout touch her hand. She had helped me and now she had let herself be completely at my mercy. This girl wouldn't hurt me. I closed my eyes too, not wanting to let this beautiful moment pass, because I wanted to feel this connection as long as possible. Also, because her hand smelled like cod.

She made a sign for me to follow and started walking. I examined my options. A painful attempt proved that I couldn't fly, so I was stuck on this island. And considering that girl had done nothing but help me, she was my best bet. She led me along the coast for about half an hour, in which time I managed to get her name, Astri or something down the line. Then, after clearing a cliff I saw something that made my heart skip a beat. Illuminated by the deep red evening light was an actual viking village.

Hundreds of vikings were walking around and chatting, eating and doing their other daily business. To make things better most of them were carrying weapons.

\- No, no, no! I'm not going in there!

Maybe there were some good humans, this girl seemed pretty nice. Certainly there were loads of bad ones that killed enormous numbers of dragons every year. In a village with this many people I'd be basically at their mercy, and that wasn't something I had an intention of putting myself into.

And then she looked me with such big eyes that I just couldn't refuse. But I made sure to stay close to her. We stayed at the outskirts if the village, which was lucky because the villagers gave strange looks every time we neared them. It was almost like if she understood what I wanted. She led me towards a large hut with a large black smokestack coming from it. The smell of iron told me that this was where they made they're metal tools. Maybe. A strange viking made his way out of it. He seemed to lack both a hand and a foot, tough on different sides. And then he started walking towards me.

\- What do you want?

The language barrier was really starting to get on my nerves. But the viking didn't seem threatening, it didn't even carry a weapon, so I did nothing but push myself towards the girls side for protection as the viking examined at the wound in my wing and made various signs on a piece of leather. She was the only one I felt like trusting in this place.

The light was almost gone as she took me to a strange building. Large tall stones had been put in a circle, supported only by logs and by each other. This formed a wall about five meters tall surrounding the area. The girl led me through the seemingly only entrance, a large wooden door. The structure had no roof and seemed to be still under construction. The there was no decoration like on the other huts and the few logs made up the floor covered only about half the surface. I happily noted a basket of fish in one of the corners. But what struck me the most wasn't the building. It was the gronkle inside it. Also, though I didn't notice it immediately because of the dark, a night fury.

I turned to the girl for explanation.

\- What's this?

She kindly petted my head while making yet more incomprehensible sounds. Then she started walking away, after making sure I understood that she'd be back soon. The door closed behind me, leaving me alone with the two dragons.

\- Excuse me? What's going on?

The night fury answered. His deep voice told me this was a male.

\- That's what we're trying to find out.

Finally I had found someone that could speak to me and explain what was happening. And now they didn't know either? He continued.

\- You shouldn't've come here. Some of these humans aren't exactly friendly.

\- I've noticed.

I showed them my wing and the gap in it. Normally other dragons would cry or try to comfort someone who had lost their wing. But instead they showed me their own injuries. The gronkle had a gap in the wing just like me, while half of the night fury's tailfin was gone. But he was carrying a human contraption that seemed to be a replacement fin.

\- They grounded you too?

\- You're a genius.

\- Well excuse me for not being superior to every one else just like your kind!

He narrowed his eyes. I didn't mean it to come out this aggressive. The few night furies I had met were always bragging about being "the best" but this wasn't a reason for judging this one. Maybe it had been a stressful day. Luckily the gronke noticed the situation getting salty and jumped in to settle peace.

\- Oookaaayy, how about we start with with introductions? I'm Meatlug, and you?

It took me a moment to snap out of the standoff.

\- I'm Stormfly.

\- I'm Toothless. And yeah, it's a really funny name and you should definitely laugh.

I smiled. Maybe this was a nice guy after all.

\- Wait, wait, wait… the humans decided to befriend dragons by cutting off their wings?

To try to get some sense we had each explained what we knew. And honestly, I felt more confused than ever before. Meatlug summarized the thing.

\- So the plan of you and Hiccup didn't work.

\- Well, they don't cut off all the wing, but you're right. Something went very wrong with our plan.

\- But why would they do that?

\- Isn't it obvious?

They stared at me. They really couldn't understand it? Great. Not only I was stuck in this place at the mercy of vikings. I was stuck here with two idiots.

\- They want to enslave us. They probably believe that by stopping us from flying away and totally outnumbering us they can make us do whatever they want...

A shiver went down my spine as I said the next part.

\- …and they're right. We're completely at their mercy.

\- They aren't much better than the queen then.

Meatlug and I glanced at Toothless.

\- They aren't much better than what?

\- The queen? The Red Death? The little, one hundreds meter long, flying and firebreathing problem?

We shook our heads in unison.

\- Wait, you guys aren't from the nest are you?

Toothless had started explaining when the wooden door opened and three vikings walked inside. But they were armed with fish instead of weapons. I recognized the kind girl and chipped happily before guzzling at her side. She scratched my scales and fed me the cod and it just felt so good. She was the one thing that made sense in all of this. A kind person that helped a dragon in need. Meatlug nuzzled the largest of viking while Toothless went on to straight up lick the remaining viking.

\- Is that…

\- Hiccup, the best viking to ever exist!

After eating and a metric ton of cuddles the humans set up hammocks. Largest viking put Meatlug's prosthetic wing on her with the help of the others, before attaching what Meatlug explained was the control rope to his wrist. I hoped I'd get a prosthetic soon. The humans laid down in the hammocks to sleep, the sun had set after. For a moment, as we looked at the pitch black cloud covered sky, everything seemed well.

\- Isn't it strange? One moment we're comparing humans with a monster that keeps dragons as slaves and the next… we're cuddling with them like hatchlings with their mother!

\- The true power of fish.

\- These aren't ordinary humans. They're kind and gentle, and they care about us!

And that would've been the end of that. But I just had to ruin the good mood.

\- Still, why did they ground us?

\- Or better, what do they want to use us for?

It took me a solid half a minute to get an idea

\- Toothless, dragons raid here for food right?

\- Right.

\- And you and Hiccup have shown that dragons can be befriended right?

Five pairs of eyes turned on me as I tried to explain.

\- They know we are friendly, they know we can fight, they're trying to make us fight on their side!

The two dragons were basically gaping while the vikings, who didn't understand a world just seemed curious.

\- We need to fly to fight. That's what the prosthetics are for!

\- And that's why they're here! We need them on our backs quickly to be able to fight!

Finally, sense. Things still looked bad, but they made sense. Toothless started to shake.

\- But… but I can't fight them! I have friends there! What would Scarnose think if…

He froze.

\- I - I've told Scarnose that they shouldn't attack the humans to try to make peace. But the humans don't want peace now, do they? The fuckers want war, and now they're using us as a weapon to fight our own! Shit!

\- Wait, isn't that a good thing? They won't try to fire on us. It will be easier.

He locked his eyes on me. They were narrowed and filled with rage. I backed as much as I could in the small building, not wanting to be in a night furies wrath.

\- Those dragons are the closest thing I still have to a family. I've been fighting and living with them for nine years. Apart from Hiccup, they're the only friends I've got. And now I have to fight them while they stand there helplessly because I told them to! So no, it's not a good thing that they're gonna get fucking slaughtered!!

He threw himself in the rock wall repeadetly while roaring into the night sky. Two heavily armed vikings ran in too see what was happening. It took the comforting words of me, Meatlug and most importantly Hiccup to stop the scene from becoming a bloodbath, and even then the night fury kept swearing far too much for this story's rating.

\- When is the raid coming? Maybe we can find out something till then?

\- I don't know when it's coming! We need surprise to raid! But what can I do when I'm stuck in this thing?!

He bashed his head into the wall once more and cursed just about everything that existed. I don't really remember what happened next, but after a while he managed to calm down, and we laid down to rest. I don't think Toothless got any sleep that night, but the rest of us managed to eventually doze off.

That is, until a few hours after midnight. From the sky came the roar of a deadly nadder.


	17. Chapter 17: Peace?

**Another title for this chapter would be "how not to raid your village". Enjoy what can best be described as a... well, I'm not gonna spoil anything.**

My heart was beating so fast that I would've been afraid of it jumping out of my chest. That was, if I didn't have much bigger things to worry about.

The guards shouted the alarm five seconds after Scarnose's roar woke up the village, and after another five seconds Hiccup was on my back. I jumped into the sky trough the building's open top, while my brain went on to work overdrive. Roaring before a raid wasn't normal procedure, so this wasn't just a normal food heist. Twenty or so dragons were landning on a plain next to the village, fully visible to countless human eyes. Scarnose had listened to me and managed to convince them to try a peaceful alternative to the raid. An alternative that could very well lead them to their doom.

The newest version of the tail fin was controlled by a pedal instead of the old lever. This, together with the practice I had gotten flying with Hiccup and the fact I was a night fury made made me land in front of the pack before everyone else. I had to convince them to go back to the nest before the human warriors got here, or their blood would be shed. Meatlug landed shortly besides me seconds later with her rider on her back. Scarnose smiled at me for a split second, but quickly put a buisnesslike expression. After all, the pack of dragons was here for a reason.

\- Where is the food?

\- The deal is off. Go back _now_.

His eyes narrowed. It was incredible that he had managed to convince the raiders not to attack, and now I was telling him his efforts were for nothing. But what could I do? I couldn't decide what a viking village wanted.

\- They've already started befriending other dragons...

He nodded at Meatlug, and at Stormfly that was coming running towards the scene. Closely behind them were loads of warriors. They had never fought side by side with dragons before, which was showed by the fear in their eyes. But they were warriors, so they kept running towards the nest witouht even slowing down. They would be here soon.

\- ...so why won't they befriend _us_?

I didn't know what to answer to make them leave. I had been in the nest myself, so I knew that witouth enough food or enough casualties none of the dragons would go back. Even when there warriors charging at them.

\- Meatlug, show them your wing.

The gronkle showed the cut in the wing, and finally, the pack started to look worried. Which was good, because Stormfly had already caught up which meant that the warriors were _very_ close. The girl on Stormfly's back looked a bit dizzy from the run, but otherwise focused and battle ready. Those damned vikings, wanting nothing more than to spill a dragon's blood, even when they were _sitting_ on one!

\- Stormfly, show then your wing too.

By now the dragons were really worried, probably also because of the warriors. Hiccup was trying his best to make me stay calm, but this was really _not_ the time to chill. The warriors were basically besides me. This was time to tell them off. And I didn't have the time for formalities.

\- GO AWAY NOW OR...

A spear planted itself in the side of a scuttleclaw in the edge of the pack. For a short moment, the creature's pain-filled roar overshadowed every other sound. The next second the air was filled with various roars and war cries, as well as more spears and arrows. The metal of an axe flashed on my side as a viking kept charging forwards. With no better idea, I joined him and leapt forwards.

The dragons hadn't expected a fight. As a result, they got completely disorganised when spears started raining on them. Now they were trying to decide between fleeing or charging themselves, and this was costing them precious seconds that they didn't have. In a split second decision, I fired. As the plasma exploded a few meters in front of the pack, the surprise made everyone stop for a while, including Hiccup. I fired again, once again in the path between the warriors and the pack. This created almost a 'wall' of fire between the two groups. If nothing else, this was buying time. By now the pack had decided to fly away, and the first dragons were already in the air.

I was about to fire a third time, when shouting came from my left. One of the warriors was panting, shouting and pointing at me with his sword. He was covered in dust, maybe from the explosions I had made. I quickly understood what was going on. He was mad at me for firing so close to them. And then I met his eyes. Fear, anger, focus, and absolutely not a thought about the dragons' lives, or about mine. And as I looked back to the sword, a wave of fear swept me. I wanted to fire more, to make sure as many dragons as possible escaped. Heck, part of me wanted to fire on the vikings, just to buy the nest a little more time. But if I wanted to still be alive by sunrise I had to make these humans happy. Night furies weren't supposed to have fear. But they weren't supposed to be flightless in a battle with dozens of vikings either.

After seeing that I had stopped being a hazard, the viking nodded and joined the charge. Meatlug and Stormfly were in the charge too, firing at the pack. Finally, the dragons were in the air and outside the range of spears. I looked back on the battleground. The fast dragons could quickly escape from the line of fire, and the well armoured ones could withstand loads of spears and other weapons, even if it took them longer to escape. A hideous zippleback and a hotburple didn't belong in any of these groups and had paid the price, joining the scuttleclaw from earlier on the ground.

I looked at the bodies, recognizing all but the scuttleclaw. He had to have joined the nest after I got shot down. I cracked a small smile, remembering how the zippleback' s head were always fighting about if she should be called Clyde n' Bonnie or Bonnie n' Clyde. At the end we just called her "Zip". Still, three casualties in this kind of battle wasn't horrible. It was a tragedy, sure, but it could have gone that much worse. But it wasn't over yet.

The dragons knew that not bringing enough food back at the nest meant with all odds death. And after circling above the nest for half a minute, they had made a decision. I crooed to Hiccup to takeoff, and jumped into the air. It took a few seconds, but soon we were flying back towards the village, the pantry to be exact. It was important to get there before the rest of the dragon horde.

After countless raids, the nest had become quite good at that. We had learned many hard lessons, from what happens if you split your forces to why you don't go back empty handed. And in the end, we had found three things that were important for a good raid: speed, speed and lastly, speed. Speed was needed to use the element of surprise. Speed was needed to reduce the amount of arrows going our way. Lastly, speed was what kept the warriors shocked and stopped them from forming a good defense. By roaring at the beginning of the raid and making a detour on that plain, a lot of time had passed. The pack of dragons could no longer rely on speed.

Even though many warriors had charged towards the plain, many had staid back to protect the village. In my haste, I made a not-so-graceful landning next to a group of spear warriors that were guarding the pantry walls. They gave me and Hiccup worried looks, but quickly focused back at the sky. And at the large amount of dragons diving at full speed. I managed to get eye contact with Scarnose up there, and I got afraid. His eyes seemed to say "You're here. I need to mind about you." and nothing else. No anger, no confusion, just acknowledgment. The funny, gentle, innocent Scarnose had been turned into an emotionless war machine.

Normally, the pantry was almost deserted when we raided. Witouth the element of the surprise the village had managed to make layers of defense. Archers in the back fired, soon followed by the spears. More roars of pain filled the sky. The spearmen jumped out of the way as the rest of the pack burned down the wooden door and everything in it's surroundings. A purple young nightmare got worryingly close, then fired. At me. I jumped up to protect Hiccup and evaded most of the beam, but my stomach still burned. In a moment of anger, I fired towards the dragons torso, who roared in pain before rushing in the pantry.

Rushing all your dragons into a building was suicide, as it left a small gap from where all dragons would come out. The one time this had been tried the vikings had used this to down the dragons one by one, causing huge casualties. Therefore, six dragons stayed outside, trying to delay the warriors as much as possible. About twenty seconds were needed to get enough food, then the pack would leave together with those six dragons. Scarnose, was one of those, and where did he put himself? He stood in front of me and kept his attention on me and Hiccup, because _of course _he had to. Maybe he thought I wouldn't fire at a friend, so it was relatively safe. And he was damn right. I hadn't lost _all _my pride yet.

Which seemed to be the case for Meatlug. She flew above the dragons, and fired on them a lot more than I knew was possible for a gronkle. The viking on her seemed ecstatic. Scarnose sprung sideways to narrowly miss the flaming hot boulder.

\- Crazy gronkle!! Watch out!

Most dragons heard my warning and evaded the shots. But a gronkle was just too slow, and got the rock straight on a wing. That got Scarnose' attention immetpdiately.

\- SNARE!! How are you?!

The only answer he received was a terrified stare. Snare was in shock. On the plus side, Meatlug was out of shots.

All that arrows could really do against dragons with thick scales was sting, unless if they hit where it hurted, like an eye or throat. Then one hit me in the leg. These archers couldn't even aim! What if they hit Hiccup? I turned towards them and growled angrily. I immediately regretted this when their bows turned towards me and Hiccup started frantically trying to explain. This was my place now. A slave that was expected to fight dragons. And if I didn't bring enough help to this raid, they could just get rid of me. I had to fight and show them I was useful. Or die. A few seconds later a flow of dragons began in the hole in the wall in the pantry. This was followed by a flow of ranged weapons towards them. And I got an idea of how to show off.

Trusting my instincts, I jumped into the air and fired. The shot was aimed for the line of dragons, but a very specific part of it. Somewhere with as few dragons as possible. I fired and fired until I felt myself falling towards the ground. Controlling the tail fin during basically a zoom climb must've been hard for Hiccup, especially since he wasn't ready. I flattened and gracefully landed, watching the column of dragons flying away. The plasma explosion wasn't very dangerous for a dragon, especially if it only stayed in there for a short while. However it did cause a lot of shock and a lot of light. For many dragons this was enough to make them drop their food, More importantly, it got harder for archers and spesrmen to hit. There was nothing like a good old plasma blast to brighten up some vikings day. And blind them for a few seconds. Lastly, the food dropped by the raiders would hopefully make the humans happy. I was simply proud.

However, the blasts had only made the dragons _harder_ to hit. A nadder had got hit by a spear and fallen out of the sky. Not Scarnose, but still not good. I looked back to the plane. It was also the end for a nightmare, who had got beheaded just like Armpit must've been. I hadn't even heard it in the chaos of battle. A small terror had gotten hit with a spear during the rush to the pantry. Lastly, there was a dragon to which the end hadn't arrived yet, But it would soon.

\- Snare...

The gronkle had tried to takeoff with the others. But Meatlug's shot had basically burned a wing off her. Still shocked, the poor dragon kept flapping her one remaining wing ever more desperaly, making the whole creature tilt to one side. I rushed over to her, but I had no idea of how to help.

\- Snare, look at me! You'll be fine!

Finally, the dragon stopped panicking to look at me. I could _swear _she gave a tiny smile among all that fear.

Snare was

well known in the nest. She had been raiding with the nest since before I went there, and though she wasn't great at battle, there was something she could do better than everyone else: be a guide for newcomers. Finding out they had lost their freedom and would be forced to fight presumably until death made many dragons go close to giving it all up. And somehow, Snare always managed to make them stay afloat, by guiding and supporting them trough their darkest days. She was the one that had made me understand that crazy volcano, and had turned me into the best raider that the nest had ever seen. She had made the nest into something that reminded of a big family

And now, she was grounded and surrounded dozens of vikings and two dragons. I was the only one standing between her and a horde of sharp weapons and claws, but what could I do? My only hope was that the vikings spared her to use her as a soldier. She'd hate fighting for the vermin, but she'd at least be _alive_.

\- Toothless... you're alive...

I felt a tear flow down to my jaw.

\- Yes, grounded but alive! They didn't kill me so they won't kill you! Don't worry!

Sadly one of the human vermin disagreed with me. It trusted it's sword and scratched at her wound, where the wing would be. Snare yelled in pain.

\- Snare! Stay with me! You'll make it trough this!

\- It hurts! Make it stop!

I roared at said viking. Bad idea. Half of the weapons that were aimed at Snare turned towards me. How many times would I have died in this battle if it weren't for Hiccup? Then a sword cut trough Snare's side. Followed by another one. And then another. Trough the roars of pain i only managed to make up one word: "stop".

\- Snare... I'm sorry.

I leapt onto her and bit down at the back of her neck, as deep as I could. All movement from the gronkle stopped. Then I fired into the open wound, transforming her neck bones into coal. At least she hadn't suffered.

\- Toothless.

I turned towards Meatlug.

\- Couldn't you have called me anything else than "Crazy gronkle"?

I thought about the matter for a bit. Then I decided that, considering that she had asked while I still had a bleeding bit of gronkle in my mouth, it was quite fitting.

**I really should raise this fic's rating. Sorry for all these really undeveloped characters that are really important to the protagonists, but hey! Cheap and easy way to character motivation. Until next time: bye bye**


	18. Chapter 18: Change

**Guess what, it's 2020 and a certain virus has made a bunch of things close down. But worst of all: let's suppose you want to talk with humans about something that is not the disease. Well, good luck, 'cause you're gonna need it. (yeah, there's also many people that die, economy crash, awful, here's a chapter)**

Starting from when I joined the nest four years ago, my popularity was always on the low side. I passed my time with Toothless and Armpit and didn't really know anyone else well. Then came that raid, and in a few minutes they were gone. When finally I met Toothless again, after two agonizing days, he had basically given up. Fueled by rage, I found myself in the front lines of the raids, protecting fellow dragons. And with Toothless gone, I became the nest's best asset. And guess what happened with dragons that wouldn't blink for me a week earlier? Suddently everyone wanted to know me.

So when I told them we should befriend the vikings, they didn't laugh in my face. Or at least, not after I told them about Toothless. It was hard, but eventually I managed to get them to agree to try. And now, when the number of dragon flying back was to the nest was so much lower than when we left, I couldn't help wishing that I'd failed instead.

\- "Let's not fire on them", great idea, _butcher._

_\- _Why did we trust you?! It was obvious something like that was gonna fail!

These words came from a zippleback called Barf n' Belch. Normally, his two heads fought over just about anything. But for now, they were united together with one purpose: telling me what an horrible creature I was.

\- I'm sorry guys! I _really_ thought this could work!

\- How the hell _could_ that work?! Even with Toothless! They don't kill him just because he's useful!

A shiver went down my spine at the thought of Toothelss. Was he really doomed to fight for the vermin? The zippleback flew away and a nightmare closed in. I had learned to know Hookfang while fighitng besides him. The old dragon was the closest thing to a friend I had left.

\- You should run. If you get in the nest, it's a death sentence.

Man, he sure knew how to cheer me up.

\- What do you mean?

\- Look around. Have we got enough food?

We had some sheeps, a basket of saumon and few other bits and pieces. But nowhere near enough. We'd've been at about half the normal load if we had managed the exit from the pantry perfectly. But Toothless' fires meant that many dragons dropped their payload.

\- No.

\- And what do you think other dragons will do when the queen threatens their life?

A shiver went down my spine from the realization.

\- They'll blame me.

\- They'll say things "It's Scarnose's fault! He told us not to fire at the humans!". And then the queen eats you instead. So you escape now and hope the queen doesn't find you. It's your best shot. I'll tell her you've been killed.

I looked around at the pack. They were few, malnourished, and covered with wounds. And though Barf n' Belch was straight up mad at me, this wasn't the case for all of them. After all, they had seen Toothless and those other two dragons and how humans didn't kill them. Most of them had just accepted that I misjudged. And that my misdjudgement had killed seven of them.

\- It _is _my fault Hookfang! If we had just done a normal raid, we'd been so much better off!

\- And so what? It's not like you'd help much if you die.

Then and there, I was close to turning around and flying away. I'd leave this whole part of my life behind, and hope that the queen never found me. But it wasn't fair. Lead the nest to it's doom and bail out? No. I had long thought of something, a way that the nest could become much better with basically no effort. And if I played my cards just right, maybe I could turn this day around.

\- I'm not leaving. I have an idea.

Hookfang's eyes went wide in fear when I said the word "idea".

\- You really want to kill everybody or what?

I rolled my eyes.

\- Yeah, my last plan left far too many of us alive, I want to change that.

\- Good old Scarnose... so what's your idea?

\- There is something this nest had from the very beginning, but that just we kept around gathering dust. Maybe it's time to put it to use, don't you think?

Convincing the other dragons not to blame everything on me was hard, but eventually, with the help of Hookfang, we had got to something. As long as nobody was about to get killed, noone would tell the queen it was my fault. And so, the pack of dragons flew into the volcano, and dropped what little food it had into the Red Death's mouth. But there was no hiding the fact that something was very wrong.

\- Where's the rest of you? What happened?

\- Dragons are fighting on their side, against us. They got seven of us.

For a moment, the queen actually looked worried. After all, didn't she always tell she was taking care of us? And when it came to keeping vikings away fram the mountain, she was right. But raids? Then she didn't care about how many came back.

\- Bullshit. The vermin kill every dragon they see, withouth exception.

\- Sure, you don't have to believe that. Just leave us in peace.

But she wasn't gonna to. Something she definitely cared about was food, and she hadn't gotten enough.

\- Scarnose, Windshear, Hookfang, Barf n' Belch, the game.

She couldn't just tell someone to fly in front of her to get eaten. In that situation, even a terror would've had enough brain cells to _run_. And chasing something that's fighting for its life takes a lot of time and energy, even for The Red Death. The solution? Call four dragons and only eat one. Three quarters chance to live if you comply, basically zero if you run. Someone had once said that this gamble was basically a game, and "the game" stuck. And now she had called me for one.

The three dragons threw me sharp glances, though Hookfang kinda looked encouraging. "Here goes nothing", I mumbled to myself. I stepped on the edge of the stone platform, well in sight of everybody, and filled my lungs.

\- NO. You're not eating ANYONE today.

If the queen was surprised, she didn't show it. However, I had managed to be her attention.

\- You mean anyone except for you? Sure. Scarnose, get down here.

\- We were nineteen an hour ago. Now we're TWELVE. And the vikings have a new weapon, dragons. Is this really a good time to eat us?! Something has to change!

I was quite far from the queen, too far for her to snap at me. If I tried to escape... maybe I could reach the exit of the volcano... but then what? Tens of kilometers of open ocean, with nowhere to hide. And the queen was _fast_. There was once a nightmare that had tried to escape from the game. And when the queen had jumped in pursuit of the dragon, she had been faster than anything I had ever seen, even faster than Toothless. She wasn't nearly as sleek as a night fury. But thousands of times more muscle mass compensated for that. In other words, no escape. I'd just hope she didn't try to eat me.

\- Dragons like you who don't bring food are a cost that we can't afford right now. Now you get down here and do the ga

\- LET'S GET ONE THING CLEAR. You _need_ me. And you _need_ every other single damn dragon in here! So you're not gonna eat _anyone_!

The queen was visibly angry now, and my heart picked up more than I knew was possible. But it wasn't just fear. The queen forced us to raid for her or be killed. So even though going against her was close to a death sentence, it sure as hell felt great.

\- I stand in the frontline of the raids, stopping the human warriors so that the rest of the nest can get the food safely. Hookfang can carry more food than anyone else in this hole, and only _seeing _Windshear's scales makes a bunch of vikings run away. Every single dragon is important, and eating us is the best way for you to starve.

For the first time since the raid, the dragons didn't seemed to hate me, they actually seemed thankful. Well, except for the Red Death of course. Too bad she was the only dragon I needed _not_ to hate me.

\- I'll recruit new dragons. Dragons that don't rebel against the queen that gives them somewhere where they're safe.

Recruit. What a good way to say threatening to death. You were told "raid for me or I kill you" and suddently your life was turned upside down. And guess who it was up to to make sure the newcomers didn't get killed? Not the queen, to be sure.

\- Yeah. New depressed dragons that have never seen a viking in their life. And now we've lost Snare too. They will be shattered and they won't get better anytime soon. And they're going up against a village that just downed seven of our bes

\- ENOUGH! DO THE GAME NOW OR YOU DIE RIGHT THERE!

Toothless could've fired at the humans during the raid. It would've taken them by surprise and helped us a lot. However, since he couldn't fly away without that human's help, that would've meant getting killed. He would've sacrificed himself for the rest of us. But he had chosen life instead. So maybe... "I'm sorry Tooth".

\- Toothless' alive.

It was far too quiet. The mountain felt claustrophobic. Lastly, just about every dragon in it was immobile and staring at me. And the queen seemed shocked. I had called Toothelss a traitor, but that name would've fit better with me.

\- Toothless' alive and he's one of the dragons fighting with the vikings. No matter how hard we try, we won't manage to win. Not against a night fury.

\- Toothless. Died almost a month ago.

\- He was grounded and that's why he didn't came back. But the vikings didn't kill him.

\- If he's grounded... then he's not such a big threat.

\- The humans built a prosthetic tail for him that allows him to fly. But it requires one of them on his back to work. That's why he couldn't fly back.

\- What a load of bullshit! I've had enough of your games.

And then she leapt up at me. A split second later, I did the same, but towards the exit. I didn't have the time too look back. I could make it. And when I got out of the volcano? I'd...

\- HE'S RIGHT!

The rumble of the Red Death flying stopped. I landed on the crater's edge and looked back at the scene. Hookfang was looking at the queen face to face.

\- I saw Toothless too, with a human on his back. Heck, _everyone_ saw him! Just ask! And he was fighting with them. You can't kill Scarnose just because he's stating the fucking obvious!

\- And what's that?

\- That if nothing changes, we die and you starve.

"Thank you Hookfang" was all I could think. Then the huge dragon turned towards me. It was a pleasure to look down on her. At the end of the day, she was nothing but a large fast beast. And she was just as susceptible to starvation as everyone else.

\- So something has to change. Have you got any ideas?

\- Yes. But let me tell you something: it's almost impossible to get things into your head.

**What might Scarnose's plan be? There are a few hints in this chapter. So if you're in quarantine and bored out of your mind... it's something. Till next time: bye-bye**


	19. Chapter 19: Victory

**How to get a (hopefully) satisfying end a sub-plot part 1**

\- How are you bud?

It was hard to understand the sound Toothless made trough the piece of neck in his jaws. But it was far from happy.

\- You didn't want to hurt that gronke, you just stopped it's pain. Am I right?

I had never before seen the look that Toothelss gave me next. His pupils were huge, his ears were laying down, and the night fury just seemed to be in pain. I climbed down from the saddle and wrapped my arms around his scaly neck. The ebony dragon seemed uncomfortable at first, but then relaxed and closed his eyes. He even let go of the gronkle meat while I dried his cheek.

\- Don't worry bud. It's gonna be fine.

I opened my eyes too see Astrid staring at me uncomfortably. She wasn't the only one to do so. Two dragons and dozens of vikings were looking at us.

\- And what are you looking at?!

Honestly, I was starting to get pretty damn sick of them.

\- What?! If you want a hug so badly go find your own dragon!

The village wasn't too comfortable having three dragons running around, so Fishlegs, Astrid and I had to bring them back into the pen. Though the building was ways better than the hole of yesterday, I still hoped someone would build something better. At least something with a roof.

Back inside, I carefully removed the arrow from Toothless' leg and cleaned the wound. The poor night fury complained every step of the way, but kept still and made it easy for me. Part of me said that he wasn't in pain from the arrow, but from seeing seven dragons dead on the ground. Taming dragons was meant to stop the bloodshed...

\- Well, getting hit by one arrow isn't too bad! Ways went better than expected!

\- Fishlegs, you expected to be burned alive. That doesn't count.

\- Boys, can't be serious more than five minutes in a row. Ain't I right Stormfly?

The nadder chirped happily and nuzzled Astrid's side. It was amazing to see how close they were after only a few hours.

\- Astrid, how did you manage to get her to like you so much?

\- Well, girls have a special bond that none of you can ever hope to reach.

I rolled my eyes. She had seen me hugging Toothless litterally minutes ago, so this wasn't really an argument. Nonetheless, I scratched his scales to help prove a point.

\- Spill the beans, how did you?

\- She was bounded, caught under nets and had an injury in the wing. Stuck alone on that beach. And I came in and helped her.

That would've been a sweet and lovely story if it weren't for one little detail.

\- And _how_ did she end up like that?

\- I've done nothing but good things for her. It's other, evil vikings that hurt her. And it worked.

\- There's no vikings on this island but us.

\- You're about as smart as a terror or what?

Right there. I talked with Astrid and she used it to criticize me. This part if her was really, really annoying.

\- Well, that's because you're so goddamned cryptic all the time. Just tell.

\- Halldis, Stoick, Snot and his dad took care of Stormfly and left her for me to heal. From her point of view, I saved her life.

\- How about fish and dragon grass for our brave lizards?

While I wasted my time with Astrid, 'Legs had actually been useful and was now coming back with a large bucket. In the next half an hour the dragons consumed almost as much goodies as the entire raid. By the time a guard came to tell us to attend Stoick's speech, Stormfly and Meatlug had dozed off by their riders' sides with smiles on their heads. Toothelss still seemed sad, but at least he was much calmer than the wreck he had been just after the raid. Before leaving I promised we'd go flying soon. That always cheered him up.

\- Wow, I really didn't expect this to go so well. Thank you.

All the body heat from the entire village meant that it was warm and cosy inside the great hall, far better than the dragon pen. But in my opinion it would've been better witouth all the dragon skulls. Stoick was standing on a table at the end of the building.

\- We had a great victory today, and I want to start by thanking everybody. Some of you helped us capture the dragons, some built somewhere for the dragons to stay while the beast ate worrying amounts of our food supply and... I forgot, but there was someone else too, or am I wrong?

We had come in the great hall last, so we were at the back of the crowd. Out of nowhere, Gobber came and pushed on a table. When Stoick saw us, his face lit up. By the time I realized what was going on, it was too late.

\- There they are! THE DRAGON RIDERS!

With Stoick pointing at us, the crowd turned around and erupted. There was applause and screams. And the people closest to us tried to give head/shoulder pats even though we were standing on a table. In conclusion, a bunch of people touched me in somewhat uncomfortable places. Fishlegs, that was standing in the middle, put his arms around us and pulled us together, gaining even more applause.

Last time I stood before the village was tense. I had to show perfection or be laughed at. But this was different. They were actually happy to see me. And I actually felt good. Stoick, Gobber and so many more people that were _not_ disappointed at me. And it only took seven dragon deaths for them to think so.

\- Kids, you did a pretty great job today. Thank you.

\- Hey! Why are _teenagers_ dragon riders?!

Eyes turned on Ulfar Trainsson. Of course. Teenagers befriending dragons, that had to be the old warrior's worst nightmare, who's life consisted of fighting and complaining about "the new generation". But Stoick just smiled.

\- You want to ride on Toothless, the night fury?

Ulfar's eyes immediately went wide in fear, and soon came the first giggles.

\- That's why. But if we tame another dragon you're welcome to ride it.

Soon after we climbed down and joined the rest, receiving some actual back pats in the process.

\- Berk, if we play our cards right, we will end this war! And we'll do it soon!

The room was filled with cheers. But they stopped as Stoick's smile faded. Now it was time to get serious.

\- But this war isn't over yet. Loads of devils escaped us. There will be more battles. Maybe even more death. That's why we have to stay focused and keep working. Saumon season is in one month, and then the raids will stop for a while. If we want to get rid of the monsters quickly, we'll have to finish them before then. But I am fully convinced we can do it!

A war cry emerged from the hall.

\- However, I think we deserve a little break for now. Do you want to get a few more hours or sleep before the sun gets up or do you want to celebrate _now_?

Food was something scarce in the village. Right now it seemed like if we'd be fine on that front, but you could never been too careful. As such, only a few tables of meat were rolled out to the hall that night. Mead, on the other hand, was _made _for moments like this.

\- Hiccup, drink off with the gang, are you in?

Had Snotlout just called me part of the gang? It was strange. It was like if killing dragons gave you social status...

Oh. Right.

\- Aren't we too young too drink?

\- Isn't everyone too drunk to notice?

\- Can't argue with that.

Getting to the others was hard, as we had to avoid hordes of chanting vikings that could barely stand, but Snot' kept my wrist hard and pushed his way to the other teens. Somehow, they had managed to get their hands themselves on a whole roasted sheep.

\- Hiccup! Anyone told you that you looked really damn cool?

\- T-thanks Ruffnut.

\- Aaalso, can we borrow Toothless? We've got this amazing idea that...

When I told them that no, they could _not_ use Toothless to set the pantry on fire and "transform everything inside into delicious, well done steaks", they started whining. Luckily, a quick suggestion by Astrid that maybe they could also stay inside it during the fire got them off. The gang spent the night of eating, drinking and a game called "get a reaction from Astrid", who did her best to ignore us. The only problem was that a reaction was almost always equal to a punch. After a while, everyone was too drunk to put together two words or straight up asleep on the table. Well, everyone except me of course. I had tried to avoid downing too much mead. I said goodbye to the teens that were awake, got a groan in response and left.

\- You think that I'd forget the flight I promised?

Careful not to wake up the gronkle and nadder, we took off. Toothless was tired, so we just lazily climbed in the sky. But I could see he was enjoying it.

\- Feels good bud, doesn't it?

Once over the clouds, the first light from dawn came into the sky. The cover completely covered the ground, hiding all the blood and death down there. Wouldn't it be wonderful if everyone was like this? Humans and dragons, gently flying together high up in the sky... I laid down on Tothless back, trying to sink into that illusion for just a little longer.

As we flew higher, the sun came up, casting long shadows onto the storm clouds. Up here, the thin air was making it hard to breathe, so I asked Toothless go lower. The night fury, that was now in a pretty good mood, smirked and quickly turned into a vertical dive.

\- Toothless!

There was so much insulting things I wanted to tell him. But clinging on to the saddle was the priority. I tried to use his tail fin to stop the dive, but he somehow managed to keep going down. And we were flying fast. In a few seconds, we were back at the clouds. Then we cleared them. And found ourselves heading straight towards the tallest cliff on the island.

\- Pull up bud! Pull UP!

As we (barely) pulled up over the treetops, I finally let out that breath I had been holding since the start of the dive. And decided this was actually quite fun.

\- Gimme some speed bud!

We reached the ocean and skimmed the water next to the coast, keeping it on our left. Toothless wings swallowed every other sound, but I could see him breathing hard. I gave the pedal a quick snap, turning us towards land to Toothless' surprise. He rolled right to avoid hitting a tree with his wing. Pulling up made us head back to the water. But in the close part, I got so pine needles in my hair. That was _too _close.

\- It doesn't really work alone, does it?

I controlled half his tail. He controlled the other half. So cooperation wasn't just necessary. It was life.

\- We climb and try again, together, ok?

We got just below the clouds, using the high altitude wind to go even faster. I spotted the forest next to the village. Tall pine trees far away from one another. Perfect. I pointed at it.

\- Are you thinking the same as me bud?

\- Crooo!

\- Good! Three, two, one GO!!!

Thanks to the momentum from the winds, the dive was just as fast as before. Toothless only slightly stretched his wings, making just enough lift not to hit the ground. But not enough to clear above the canopies.

A sharp left turn made us barely avoid the first trunk. And then another one. And a sharp right. Left. Narrowing the wings to fit between two trees. Up to avoid a small pine. As we lost speed he had to spread his wings more and more. So we had to make more, bigger turns. I managed to get the fin to move the same way as Toothless just by following instincts. A large spruce was straight ahead. Left or right? I pushed the pedal all the way back, getting maximum downforce from the prostethic. Toothless' fin did the same. And we pulled straight up.

We had _just_ enough momentum to get above the tree. A couple strong flaps later we were finally over the treetops and fast enough not to stall. Beyond the village, the clouds turned pink from the sun rising over the horizon.

\- Woohoooo, BABY!

And then the baby made me fly straight trough a plasma explosion. Oh well. I needed an haircut anyway.

I wanted to stay in the sky forever. But eventually, my duties and Toothless' bladder forced us down again. After landing behinds some bushes, I took him pack to the dragon pen. For some reason the night fury hadn't shut eye least night, so it was a pleasure to finally hear him snore. I walked out of there, careful not to wake up any of the three dragons.

Then I saw Stoick walking towards me, with a barely awake Astrid in tow. The girl had had a glass of ale too much. Then I saw her trying to walk. Maybe more like twenty.

\- Hey, how's it going?

\- There you are! I've got a few questions for you.

\- Don't you need 'Legs too? He's also a dragon rider.

\- No, just you two. Sit down.

There wasn't really anywhere to sit, so I helped Astrid sitting down on the grass before doing the same.

\- Now that things are a bit calmer, I thought for a bit. And i think there's something you two are hiding. Around a month ago you claimed to shoot down a night fury, right?

\- Yeah.

\- And Astrid, two days later you said you had found and caught a night fury with a net, right? But then you said it was a prank after leading us two kilometers on the beach.

After a worrying amount of time, she managed a "huh".

\- And Hiccup, a couple of hours later you came to the village and said that Astrid should be chief, right? And then you continued with things like that for quite a long time.

I looked at Astrid. She didn't seem worried, but maybe she was just to drunk to understand what was going on. That girl had threatened to kill Toothless, and wasn't an Angel normally. So maybe, getting her a little punishment wouldn't be too bad.

\- At first I thought it was just the hormones, teenagers doing teenage things. Or maybe there was indeed something wrong with the new generation. But...

Astird tensed up suddently, but somehow dad managed not to notice. However, I could see something completely new in her. Something that the young warrior had probably never experienced before. Fear.

\- But now we know there really was a night fury, so can you _please_ explain what's going on?

**Ok guys, we're starting to enter the end of this story. So, to keep this from becoming one of those stories who end on a cliffhanger and have last update: 2016 I'm giving myself a deadline. First of July and this thing will be done. Till next time: bye-bye**


	20. Chapter 20: Punished

My head felt groggy and I started to regret all that sweet mead. But I had planned going to bed afterwards, not being dragged to a by the chief to find out what pesky business I had done! And if said chief was to found out why Hiccup ridiculed himself... "I threatened to kill Toothless if he didn't do what I wanted". Yeah, Stoick wouldn't appreciate. Gosh, my head felt heavy from all that thinking. Anyways, finding something else to tell him before things got too awkward. That was the priority. And if it meant lying, fine. Anything but the truth.

\- It's not because I threatened to kill Toothless if he didn't do what he wanted.

I didn't realize it was the wrong thing to say until I saw the looks the two gave me. Hiccup seemed to despise me, and, more importantly, Stoick was speechless. He wasn't even because of shock, just surprise. That was probably the last thing he expected to hear. Before I knew it, Hiccup remembered how to speak and blurted to his dad.

\- Yes, that's exactly what she did! She said she'd kill Toothless if I didn't tell you she should be chief.

Stoick stare was piercing straight trough me, and my heart sped up. Drunk and panicked, the perfect state of mind for taking good decisions.

\- I-It's his fault! He freed the night fury! It's his fault! He would never be a good chief anyways!

That hit Stoick, and hit hard. And then he gave me a look... I had never been clawed to death by a mad night fury. But it had to feel better than this. "He can't kill a fifteen year old girl! He can't!" . I repeated that to myself a hundred times in the next three seconds. Finally, the part of my brain that still worked had the common sense to look down. I barely managed to open my mouth.

\- I'm sorry.

Threatening the heir. Trying to take his place. Insulting him in front of the current chief. And worst of all, the heir was the chief's son. If Stoick had decided to hang me, noone would argue. The only thing I had going for me was being a fifteen year old girl. Stoick couldn't hang me with good conscience. But he could put me in a pillory, shout about what I did to _everyone_, and make half the village deny they ever met me.

I had been allowed to wash my face. Together with Hiccup, we gave him an explanation to what had exactly happened, witouth hiding the truth. Then I got led on that platform. Stoick called everyone. He told them what I had done. He asked me to confirm. I nodded witouth looking up. Witouth further talk, the chief turned me around and put me down on the pillory. He locked it and said I would stay here the next twenty-four hours. He asked if anyone had objections. Noone did. His heavy footsteps slowly faded as he left.

I was stuck on a cliff at the edge of the village staring out at the ocean. And the worst part? The village was stuck watching my legs. Just another way to add to the humiliation. At least, I hoped it was my legs. It would've been perfectly possible for anyone to look a bit further up and...

Nope. I refused to think about that.

I though about what people would think. Some would be happy. After, all being a brilliant teen fighter made lots of people jealous. Many would be entertained, because what's funnier than the young people being punished? But what about the ones that actually cared for me? Mom, dad? Ruffnut? The rest of the gang? They had to be ashamed. I desperately needed to get out of here.

But how? Wood and metal were a lot harder than flesh. And I hadn't any kind of tool. I tried. I tried real hard. But when even the "shake like a madman" tactic failed, I knew I was stuck. Twenty four hours. I could manage that. But it wouldn't be pretty.

\- I helped you kill seven dragons you know!

Nobody answered and the silence afterwards was even more awkward. I decided not to say anything for the rest of the time.

But this wasn't fair. Everyone knew Hiccup would've never become good anyways. Sure, _maybe_ he could grow up in a strong man that would lead Berk to victory. And _maybe _the raids would magically end someday. But that wasn't so likely was it? Everyone thought that. And i got punished just for saying it out loud? I wondered what had happened if I'd just killed Toothless instead. Fame and glory for me. Sadness for hiccup. But we wouldn't have won last night witouth dragons... Fine. Maybe it was fair. But that didn't make me any happier being here.

And what about Stormfly? I was the only one she trusted. How would she do so long witouth me? She had been in this village for maybe twelve hours, and in that time she stayed closely at my side. So what would she do alone for a day?

Soon my mouth felt dry. After I don't know how many hours my stomach started churning. Gosh, nothing to eat or drink for a day? And what about the loo? Gosh.

I wasn't gonna spend the entire sentence praying to the gods for them to make time pass faster. I also used a considerable amount of time cursing them for putting me here. I was especially mad at Freyja. She was supposed to reward us warriors, and look where she got me! Eventually, the sun went below the horizon. Only twelve hours to go. Too bad I was bent over and far too uncomfortable too sleep.

I realized something else. This was a great spot to see a raid. A wide view over the open ocean, where the dragons usually came from. Dragons almost never attacked two days in a row, but I had nothing better to do. This added a third thing on my list of things to spend time.

A few hours later, a dark silhouette appeared in the clouds. I tensed up. What would I do if a raid came? I would have to get out of here. But for now it was a lonely dragon far in the distance, so I didn't have to give the warning yet.

Soon that shape got bigger and closer. My body started shaking. I started too see other, smaller shadows besides it. And they were definitely heading here. I decided one warning too much was better than one too few.

\- RAID!!!

Berk sprang up. The guards woke up anyone who might still be asleep. Spearmen ran out, and started watching the night sky. Small groups of warriors gathered all around the village. Fishlegs flew out of the dragon pen on Meatlug. The only one who wasn't running was me. Stuck outside in plain view, not good. Really not good.

\- Let me out of here! I need to go to Stormfly!!

While desperately waiting for someone to free me, I looked at the raiders. One of the smaller shapes turned out to be a monstrous nightmare. But if the _smaller_ shape was a nightmare... There was something _big _out there.

**Hey, I found this thing called cliffhanger, looks fun! Reading this, it seemed a bit like these anti-alcohol commercials, so sorry for that. Not that I encourage underage drinking. Hope you're doing well, or at least managing. I'd write some encouraging speech to make you happier, but I'm sure the internet would do a much better job. Till next time: bye-bye**


	21. Chapter 21: Armour

**First things first: one of you really wants to know from which POV the ccapters are. Problem: what if the others don't? Solution: I'll write the POV in the END author's note. If you want to know, just make a short hop to the end before reading. I'll also insert this in the previous chapters... eventually. Also, that same person mentioned grammar problems and things like lampshading. Grammar solution: I'm gonna be careful. Lampshading: hey I learned a new word! Thank you if you remember that I'm not a professional author, and this story is also a learning experience. Anyways...**

No. Not one more raid. Not now. Toothless was going to be crushed. And why the hell did they raid two days in a row?! We were supposed to be safe today!

Of course, Fishlegs didn't mind. Five seconds and he was into the air. And Astrid...

\- Astrid!

Stuck outside during raid. BAD. And Stormfly wasn't much better off.

\- Toothless.

The night fury was staring at the sky though the building's open roof, looking traumatized. Understandable, with what had happened yesterday, but this wasn't the time to slack off. I gave him a light slap on the head and climbed on him.

\- Toothless, listen. We go out and save things. We save Astrid and then we try to protect as many dragon as possible. But it won't work if you keep staring at...

A clubbed tail. Three pairs of eyes. Head frill. Bumps and warts all over the thing's body. And most importantly, motherfucking huge. It had to be a hundred meters long. The monster roared louder than anything that had ever roared. Now it was my turn to look traumatized.

\- What the hell? What the hell?! Toothelss, what the hell?!!

For a few seconds we just sat there. Toothless growled silently while I mumbled incomprehensible sounds with the part of my brain I had left. It was completely quiet apart from the sound from roars and fire that echoed in the distance. No viking seemed to move a muscle. Until the chief shouted almost as loud as the monster itself.

\- It's just a big dragon!! GET IT!!

That. That was the reason Stoick made a great leader. Capable of thinking and giving orders when everyone else was out. Sure, maybe not great orders, but still orders. Reality stated to come back to me, and it required action.

\- Let's go.

The night fury made a nervous croo before taking off. We quietly went to a glide above all the chaos. Meanwhile, dragons were attacking the pantry essentially unopposed, save from Meatlug that seemed to have completely accepted her role as a warrior. Astrid was trying and failing to get out of the pillory, and the monster was... just sitting there?

Astrid had been a bitch. But that wasn't an excuse to let her burn to death. And she was one of the three vikings that had an actual dragon. So freeing her was the priority. After pointing at her pillory we quickly dove down there. I jumped off and removed the metal pin that kept Astrid in place.

\- You go get Stormfly, _now_.

I didn't even have time to for a long dramatic conversation, though she gave me a "thank you" as I took off again. What could I do next? I let Toothless choose. The night fury decided that charging at full speed against the monster was a great idea. I made a mental note to never to let him take any more decision, ever. But for now it was too late to go back.

A lot of vikings with spears were running towards the monster. How exactly they thought to make any difference was unclear. The big creature seemed to completely ignore them and focus instead on the raiders. For some reason the dragons were dumping food in the things mouth. Another thing I didn't have time to think of.

If there was something that vikings had, it was guts. Thanks to these guts, they managed to simultaneously throw dozens of spear against the monster's chest. But hard skin made the sharp sticks simply bounce off. And that got the things attention. It turned it's hesd at the warriors and opened it's mouth.

\- Now!!

A blast at the monster's neck in a high speed pass was just enough to distract it. But when the enormous head turned towards us it's eyes got somehow even more terrifying. Pupils so thin that they seemed like lines locked on us. But we were far too far away. Next, the raiders.

The dragons were looping between the pantry and the monster, dumping more food in it's mouth every time. In the beginning, with the shock of seeing that big dragon, the raiders had been almost unopposed. But now that most of the panic was gone, more and more vikings gathered to stop them from stealing everything. And there was Fishlegs and Meatlug too. And we had to stop them from killing each other.

\- You know what to do bud.

Fishlegs was struggling against a purple nightmare. I was pretty sure it was the same that had fired on us the last raid. I locked eyes with Toothless for a split second. Just enough to agree on what to do.

Dive down, plasma blast just in front of the nightmare, shoot back up. Next up, a zippleback that was getting charged at by warriors with axes. The small plasma blast blinded the vikings long enough for the beast to escape. And of course, dragons escaping with food. Two blasts that made dragons drop their loads. We landed gracefully just short off the battlefield. I noted a downed Razorwhip in the mess. Loads of faces were looking at us in awe.

We lost that attention when the monster roared louder than Valhalla. I looked at it. The thing had been surprisingly passive this whole battle and I started to wonder how strong it really was. All it had done was roar, could it even spit fire? Then I noticed how the raiders where flying away from the building. I thought it was finally done. But the monster's head was opened and turned towards us. "They flew out of fire " rang trough my head as I made the realization.

\- RUN!!!

Time slowed down. A bright stream of yellow fire came out of the beast. Vikings and dragons did their best to avoid it as the plasma made it's way towards the building. Meatlug slipped sideways to escape. Toothless took a strong wingbeat, getting us airborne in a split second. My feet moved the pedal forwards to keep us straight. The world behind was set aflame, with burning vikings in it. Not something to think of now.

Finally safe, I looked down at the destruction. And there we a lot of it. The south wall of the pantry was gone. A large patch of ash on the ground, where the only recognizable things were metal weapons. How were we supposed to fight something like that? The raiders flew back in to get what was left, and quickly restarted carrying it to the beast. All that death in the stream of fire, was it just to make us stop fighting back? Maybe we could use this. Keep our heads low and wait it out.

\- Don't fight! If we don't attack them they don't kill us!

I took a moment to appreciate how practicals dragons were for making public announcements. High up, where everyone could see you, perfect. That moment nearly cost me my life when the monster fired at us. My eyes sprang up and my heart managed to pick up even more. We used a _fast_ dive to get out of the fire's path.

\- Hiccup is wrong! Attack it before it sets the whole village burns!

Despite all the fear, I managed to note how Stoick never missed a chance to point out my mistakes. And how exactly were we supposed to fight that thing?

I believed that the last hours had taken it's toll on Astrid. She was hungry and thirsty, and in no shape or form capable of fighting. Also, she would have a hard time staying in the village because of the humiliation. I thought that she would just make her way to Stormfly and hide with her in the woods until it was over. Well, turns out I didn't know the girl that much. In the few minutes I had been fighting, she had been running trough the village to the dragon pen, slammed the door open and rode out of the building on her deadly nadder. The bright light of nadder fire came from the monster's paw.

Despite bags under her eyes and awkward stares from everyone, the warrior had charged her dragon straight on to do what damage she could. And judging by the roar the monster made, she did a lot. But now it was focused on her. While Toothless could just fly away from danger, Stormfly was still stuck on the ground. I locked eyes contact with Toothless for a split second before we dove down there.

The plasma exploded on top of the monster's head and we disappeared in the night again. But apparently that wasn't enough to distract it. It's eyes kept looking at the deadly nadder that had attacked it's leg seconds ago. The little sanity Astrid had left had made her flee back towards the village, seeking cover behind a hut.

The next second, that hut was turned to ashes.

The fire beam had pulverized the building turned even many nearby on fire. Any order that was left in Berk's warriors was now gone. For a moment we just flew there. I was too messed up to understand anything. Finally, my mind said it was time for action.

\- Toothless, get me down.

During a raid, every capable man and woman was expected to fight. But the ones that were too young, too old or otherwise too weak stayed indoors. The huts didn't contain any food and were therefore calm during battles. Normally. Right now, many were burning. We landed just short of the fire. I ran in with Toothelss at my side, trying to ignore the cries coming from the buildings. I needed to find her. Then a voice came from a nearby building.

\- Stop daydreaming and save these people instead!

Astrid walked out of one of the huts with an old woman on her shoulder. Her nadder quickly joined her side, and together they carried the woman out of danger. The girl was covered in ash and had burn marks over a lot of her hands. Her face was awful and she was grimacing from pain. But she was still somehow alive.

\- How...

\- The hut, Stormfly and clothes covered me from most of the fire. Now move!

I ran into the closest hut. An old man was inside, with his arms over his head. I grabbed him harshly and mowed my way out with all the strength I could muster. He kept complaining and tripping with his wooden leg, but I didn't care. I found Toothless waiting outside and put the man on him. Despite complaints from both of them, I managed to persuade them to get out of danger witouth kiĺling each other. I looked around searching for more people to rescue. Among the sound of the sparkling fire, I heard a baby's cry.

The entrance was burning. But the walls were simply made of leather. Leather that my knife could easily cut trough. I ran in, grabbed the kid and rushed out. I started coughing and crying because of the smoke, but I kept running. Finally, a woman came and took the baby from my hands and allowed me to help someone else. I stopped Toothless from getting in a fight with some angry vikings and ran back with him into the flames. The voice of a little girl caught my attention. It came from a wooden hut. I ran towards it just in time too see the building collapse and hear the voice going quiet.

Finally, it was over. During the time I had rescued those two, others had taken out a lot of fires. And the rest of the huts had burned down. I walked away from that hellscape. Witouth thinking about it, my legs brought me to the coast, where I laid down with Toothless. I started at the balck sea that was barely visible in the night. But a voice inside my head kept saying that I was forgetting something.

\- Where is it?!

I jumped up and looked around, but the monster was gone. How? It was far too big to hide was it? I spotted Fishlegs and Meatlug flying. I shouted at them for an explanation.

\- Hey! Where did the monster go?!

\- It flew away a few minutes ago!

Wait. It didn't make sense. The monster wanted out food. Why would it leave then before eating absolutely everything? Unless...

\- Toothless, let's go!

Half flying and half running, I made my way to the pantry on the night fury. And when I looked in trough the missing wall, every Berkian's worst fear came true.

Empty.

**This chapter was written from Hiccup's POV.**

**Also, this chapter was very late. Once again, RL happened. Not just bad things, there's a lot of fun too, but no matter how it goes it takes time. I'm sorry for making you wait this long. Just in case someone didn't get it, the monster in this chapter is the Red Death. I hope you're doing well, and, till next time: bye-bye**


	22. Chapter 22: Queen

**So I tried something. This chapter covers _exactly_ the same events as the previous from another point of view. Also, some character building for one of the main plot elements of httyd. In theory, you _can_ skip this chapter and not miss anything plot relevant ('cause you find it in the previous one), but for the rest of you, enjoy. POV at the end AN.**

Life was supposed to be simple. I was going to have my own nest with dragons bringing me food. Eventually, when I got old enough and strong enough, I was supposed to find another green death and have hatchlings. It wasn't necessary easy. Convincing the dragons to raid was a fine balance between life threats and keeping unity in the nest, and failure meant starving. Green deaths were extremely rare and I hadn't the least idea about how you raised offspring. But still, simple. Maybe not easy but _simple_. I was _not_ supposed to help the dragons raid by functioning as a fucking meatshield!

But then again, if the alternative was starving... Maybe worth a shot? Still. The first raid of my life had barely started and I had already decided I hated it.

I landed next to the village and roared loud enough to wake up everyone. My goal was to get the vikings' attention so that the raiders could go in and get the food witouth trouble. Ironically, I was the leader of the nest, but it was these dragons that knew how to raid. So I had thrown away any and all dignity and listened to Scarnose when he explained how I could help them. Apparently I could help by being a meatshield. Great.

The humans walked out of their huts to look at me. Most of them seemed shocked. And to be honest, I didn't like seeing them either. If I had wanted, I could probably have levelled the village in minutes. But spitting fire was tiring, and if you had to use all your energy to get food, what was the point? But despite all this, I was afraid. A human was just about harmless, but hundreds of humans could do incredible things. Things that I didn't want happening to me.

The distracting seemed to work fine, the vikings seemed to just stare at me instead of fighting. Soon the first dragons started to throw food at me. I happily picked up the goodies.

I noticed some raiders eating their loads. Barf n' Belch was eating some kind of cattle. In theory that was forbidden, and should have resulted in death. But for now, we had so much food I pretended not to notice. Plus, life was easier if the dragons were actually happy to stay in the nest.

That's when I heard it. A human shouting. Slowly buy surely the vikings started to put up a defense. And among all the warriors, there it was. A dragon fighting alongside humans. The gronkle went in pass after pass blasting at _my_ dragons! Not a dragon from the nest, but still attacking fellow dragons.

I was taken by surprise by a volley of spears that hit my chest. The weapons simply bounced off, but these vikings were a pain! I looked down. A bunch of spearsmen. I decided to turn them into ashes instead. I turned my head at them, preparing to fire.

That's when that Toothless arrived. And he _fired _at my neck! Why?! He had been a star raider, strong and kind, so why did he turn against me? Yeah, he had a human riding him. So maybe what Scarnose had said wasn't complete bullshit. But still, firing at me, not ok! I was the queen! I turned at him to give him a lesson, but he was too far away.

I picked up some food that the raiders had brought. I had forgotten about them in that moment with Toothelss. And about the battle too. I quickly assessed the situation. And it was about to go bad.

Ever more vikings joined the battle at the pantry. Though the dragons seemed to have the situation under control, they were quickly getting overwhelmed. And Windshear was down. I felt bad. I had one job, protecting the nest during this raid, and I had failed. But this wasn't the time to mourn. The raiders needed help, _now_. But how? I couldn't fire witouht if they were in the way. I roared for them.

\- Fly away from there now!

Warriors, Toothless and the village's gronkle, all together. I really didn't want to do this to Toothless. Yes, he was now a traitor, but if Scarnose was right, it was his only way to survive! And Windshear? What if she was just to wounded to move? Then the fire would kill her. It felt wrong. Especially when I remembered how often I sent dragons out on raids, many of which never came back

Ultimately, I didn't have a choice. Doing nothing would mean dooming the few dragons I had left. So I gathered as much methane as I could muster, and set the world ablaze. More exactly, the edge of the pantry and surrounding area. But both of the viking's dragons survived. Of course.

With the fire, the fear came back in the humans. Were they finally going to leave the raiders alone? Nope.

The human sitting on Toothless shouted what was probably a war cry. Right now the night fury was in firing range. And a traitor. And he could become a threat. So yeah. It was best to get rid of him as soon as possible. And maybe it was the best for him too. Not having to fight against former friends. So I fired.

And of course, missed. I hated raids.

Still, things seemed to be going well now. The dragons' path back and forth from the pantry was now safe. And even though there was a lot of shouting and sounds of metal clashing coming from the village, there wasn't much action.

But then some pesky nadder released it's magnesium fire on my paw, I couldn't help roaring in pain. Yeah fireproof scales, but it was still _very_ hot. Especially considering just how much that nadder had blasted. And that got me mad.

I looked down at the criminal. Young, blue and yellow and a human on it's back. And a large gap in the wing. I grinned. Flying things were hard to hit. But if this one was really grounded, it was _doomed_.

The nadder started running towards some buildings as I tracked it with my head. I got myself ready to fire, keeping my eyes locked on the prey. Something, probably Toothless, blasted the top of my head. But by now I was in tunnel vision, and the explosion did little more than throw off my aim a little. The blast only costed me a few seconds to get the aim back on target. This was enough for the nadder to hide behind a hut. But a mere hut wasn't gonna stop much. I shot out the methane. And things got lit.

The smoke made it impossible to see what had happened to that nadder, but the battle was over anyways. Scarnose informed me they had cleaned the place of all its food, so there wasn't any reason to stay. I got worried for a second. How would we get food if the vikings starved to death? Then I remembered the vikings took their food from our waters in the first place, so I calmed down. We flew back to the nest. In the flight back home, I finally managed to breathe. We had done a good job. Emptied the village for only one casualty. It was an incredible success, that I didn't want to repeat ever again.

**This chapter was written from the Red Death's POV.**

**Alright, what did you think? An insight in a monster's life. Did you expect more evil and murderous thoughts? Well, me too. But it was so hard to write, and I actually had to scrap part of the initial chapter where she was an actually evil thing. Now she's just someone who tries to make a life and accidentally makes the others life hell in the process. It's just much easier to motivate characters with "I'm hungry" than "I want to make others suffer". So what did you think? If you hated this and think it's crap just pretend this chapter didn't exist. Now, if you excuse me, I've gotta see the crew dragon livestream. The first crew launch from US soil since 2011, so excited! Till next time: bye-bye**


	23. Chapter 23: Hunger

**Message to b: it's really nice that you use all these fancy words when talking about my fic but I sadly don't understand half of them. Thanks if you use some simpler English next time. But to summarize: you think Red Death is evil and I can make characters suffer by forcing them too chose between their moral compass and practical needs. _Nice_.**

**To the rest of you: today we cross another line in the name of survival. Enjoy...**

\- Empty? What do you mean by empty? They can't have taken _everything_!

We had just finished counting the casualties. Six warriors at the pantry and another six in the burning huts. And there were few more that were badly burned, so they could survive but they could also not. And it was a tragedy. The highest number of deaths in a single raid since we could remember. And a new devil was out there now. But if what Hiccup said was right, and the pantry was truly empty... No. That was simply not allowed to happen.

\- It's not empty. End of discussion.

\- Just come look! It's bad, and the village needs you!

At the mention of the village, I knew I had to follow. I was chief for a reason after all. I followed him and Toothless back to the building. The hole in the south wall made it easy to look inside. And immediately I proved Hiccup wrong. In the corner were a couple fresh sheep sausages. I picked them up and showed them to Hiccup and a very interested dragon. I would've liked if he stopped talking about that "we're all gonna starve" bullshit, and give me time to think of important stuff, like organising a proper funeral. Then it hit me.

\- I-It's not enough. We don't have enough to make it till saumon season do we?

\- You get it? We've gotta start rationing as soon as possible!

I made some quick mental math. About two hundred vikings lived in Berk, and they had to survive about four weeks until the saumons came. No. Two sausages would not be enough. Finding out a way to survive until then became the highest priority. For once, Hiccup was right. I stated to shiver. Dying in battle was an honour. Starving was not. What would the gods think? The souls of an entire village, doommed to eternal pain! But I clenched my fist. I wasn't gonna lay down and die. And neither was the village.

\- Search everything. I don't want anyone to get anything in their bellies until we know exactly how much we have!

We quickly picked up whatever was left in the broken building and went to search elsewhere. Food that people stored in the huts for breakfast, stashes of sweets, and what some were about to have for dinner. In total: a hundred kilos. I looked around. My strongest warriors, my closest friends, all three dragon riders and some other villagers were all looking nervously at the far too small pile. Everyone was silent, but thinking the same thing. "It's not enough". I didn't know what to do. But maybe others did.

\- The ones that are here, meet me in the great hall in five minutes.

They headed to the building immediately, but I had something to fix before that. And that something involved one certain girl.

\- Astrid, you have twenty-four hours at the pillory. You leave it afterwards. And who the hell freed you?

She stopped in her tracks and turned around, her face mortified. Shivering, she answered, though her voice was down to a whisper.

\- H-Hiccup. Hiccup let me out.

I sighed. My son had always had a special talent to make the worst possible decisions, and I would have to talk to make him stop sooner or later. But for now, I had to get this girl in her place.

\- Alright, fun's over, go back.

She looked conflicted, and it worried me. She had recieved a direct order, and refusing? And then her eyes narrowed.

\- You need me in the great hall. I have to go there first.

A fifteen year old girl standing up towards the chief. And believing she was someone! Someone important, that we "needed"! Alright then. She had had her chance.

\- The last time you got out you _killed_ six villagers. You and your little dragon made that monster fire on these huts. Noone _needs_ you because you only _hurt_ others! And if you ever want to see the morning light again, GO TO THE PILLORY NOW!

She didn't object anymore after that.

The great hall was dead quiet. Noted, there wasn't many vikings in it. This was a sensitive issue, and with too much people it would turn into a screaming match. Finally, after a few incredibly long minutes, Ulfar Trainsson opened his mouth.

\- I think we all know what's going on here.

I was about to fall into laughter but managed to turn it into a cough. That monster, the dragons, the lack of food. We didn't know _anything_. But I let him continue.

\- That monster is a punishment from the gods. These _teenagers_ joined forces with the dragons, and now we shall _all_ pay.

\- Or maybe they're mad because of the actions of a _certain girl_...

I turned towards Halldis, that had just spoken. Unbelievable. Probably the worst raid in Berk's history and these two were using it to push their agendas, criticizing the youht and Astrid respectively. But it seemed like the only real possibility.

\- Alright, it's a punishment from the gods. What should be done in that case?

Spitelout was also in the meeting. Now, they were the only adults here, and thus supposed to be responsible and care for the village. They starred happily brainstorming like little children.

\- Sacrifice!

\- _Virgin_ sacrifice!

\- In particular that girl! She's a traitor, a dragon rider, and a virgin! The gods will be thrilled!

\- Oh, great Odin, you're gonna love this! And then we can...

\- HOW ABOUT NO?

In thst moment, the small part of me that still believed in other people died. So I turned to someone else. That someone else proved to be the gang of fifteen year olds minus Astrid. Great. Fishlegs started talking.

\- Ok, we saw the dragons throw food in that thing. What if they were like, paying it for helping them to raid?

\- And how does it help us?

After that he was quiet.

\- Have you ever noticed how the dragons don't eat the food you they take?

Exactly the kind of question we needed right now, Hiccup sure knew how to be useful..

\- What if they only took the food to bring it to that thing?

\- Ok, how does it matter?

Hiccup gave a broad smile.

\- That means that, if we get rid of it, we end the war.

Getting rid of that monster. Sure, just like that. Very easy and _totally_ possible. That was enough. I slammed my fists into the table and stood up.

\- CAN'T ANYONE ACTUALLY SAY SOMETHING THAT'S NOT COMPLETELY USELESS?!!!

Apparently no. The room turned quiet. I took a deep breath.

\- Alright then. We're gonna have to evacuate. The bersekers will take care of us.

Hiccup looked mortified.

\- What?? We're _one_ kill away from ending the war and decide to leave?!

"_Maybe _we are one kill away. And _maybe_ one thousand". What was it with people and jumping to conclusions?

\- We decide not to starve.

\- There's plenty of fish in the sea! And I found some deers in the forest a few weeks ago! And if we just...

\- AND FOR WHAT? So that ten of us survive instead of five?! I've got an entire village to feed, and that just ain't gonna happen with a few deers.

\- You are missing something. We've got three dragons.

Eyes turned on Spitelout, who had now a devilish grin on his face. Yeah, three dragons, how did it help?

\- That's about three tons of meat.

All vikings in the hall and (probably) every other life form in the known universe had the same answer.

\- WHAT?!!

\- We're desperate, and though dragon meat tastes like shit, it's still edible.

At this moment, Hiccup, Fishlegs and the other teens present rose up in unison.

\- You're not touching them! You filthy bastard!

\- Tell that again when you're about to starve.

I thought about it. Unethical and unpleasant, but it could actually work. Unlike anything else thst we had come up with today. But my son was really close to his dragon. And then it hit me. Hiccup needed to grow up.

\- Alright, fine. Better than nothing.

\- What?? No, you can't do that!

\- It's the only way for us to survive!

Hiccup and Fishlegs looked at each other. They had become attached to their dragons. They had become attached to the enemy. So killing their dragons now was for the best, before separating them became impossible. Legs whispered something in my son's ear, who nodded and stood up.

\- You want dragon meat? I'll get it to you. We're gonna kill that monster, bring you it's body and end the war. All I ask for is a little bit of time.

Right then and there, he looked strong, and ready to take on the world. But killing somehting that big just wasn't realistic. So I didn't say anything. As the second passed, he seemed more and more desperate. I saw Hiccup fighting to hold back tears. When he talked again, his voice was down to a whisper.

\- Please.

I was standing outside of the hall with all of Berk in front of us. Despite the darkness, it was easy to see all the destruction the raid had caused. Was there any easy way to say "you'll have to eat dragons"? Oh well.

\- Berkians, in the next days we will ration what we have.

"Ration" was maybe the wrong word.

\- Most of you will have to do witouth food for three days. But for you who are really starving, we've got forty kilos set apart to help you.

There was a wave of complains after that. Cutting of the food supply from unnecessary vikijgs for three days was doable, but it was going to hurt..

\- The remaining sixty kilos will be divided into smiths, healers, warriors and dragons. Because you have a mission, and you're gonna need all your strenght for it.

Alright. Most of the bad news were out now. And though the Berkians didn't seem happy, they weren't going against us either.

\- You have to kill that monster. If you succeed, we'll have food for months. I know it may sound impossible, but we're vikings! And together, we can do anything!

Berk's war cry filled the air. Right then, the village actually seemed ready. But then someone asked the question I had feared. "How does killing that thing give us food?". I decided there was no point in lying.

\- That thing is made of meat.

Previously there had been a wave of complains. This was a tsunami. But there was no point in hiding it. Hiccup was the dragon expert, so he would lead this mission. Of course, I'd give the direct orders, but I would only be a link in the chain of command. I turned to him, who had been by my side this entire time.

\- If you want to prove yourself, this is your chance.

**This chapter was written from Stoick's POV.**

**Is eating dragons too extreme? Do you think I went too far? Oops, my bad... Anyways, the timer has started, and the vikings have only about three days before their supplies run out. Also, if you think I enjoy torturing my characters, you're completely right. It's just so relaxing... Feel free to leave a review, and till next time: bye-bye**


	24. Chapter 24: Action

I had gone in the woods just besides Berk together with Toothless. It was still night, which meant that we were almost completely invisible. As I hugged those sharp spines on his back, I couldn't help thinking that this could be one of the last nights I ever spent with him. I tried a sarcastic comment.

\- Duh, duh, duh, you're dead. The sooner you accept it the easier.

In theory Toothless was going to be fine. All I had to do was to kill thst monster, and the night fury would live with us forever. All I had to do was to kill a _hundred meter long_ and _thousands of tons heavy_ monster! And why? Why did _everything_ vikings did involve killing dragons?! A tear streamed down my face. I couldn't do it. I couldn't kill it. Dad knew this when we made the deal. I couldn't save Toothelss.

\- Croo?

The dragon tried to lick the tear off my face. He managed to coat all of me in saliva in the process, AGAIN!

\- I changed my mind! I don't care about you! Not a little bit!

Purring he pushed his head at my neck, like if I had complimented him. His signature way to get away from punishment. And it worked. I just hugged him harder after that.

\- You know, we could just escape...

That was the one solution I knew would work. Just me and Toothless against the world. He could fly, I could forge...They wouldn't stand a chance. But what about Berk? And dad? Meatlug and Stormfly?

I wasn't gonna abandon them witouth a fight.

I walked Toothelss back to the dragon pen while my mind went to work. How could I kill something that big? Big fast pointy stick? Spinning axe? Making it bleed to death from a myriad of small cuts? The hard skin was the main problem. We hadn't done any damage to it in the last raid. And how was it going to react to fire?

When we reached the pen, I got Toothelss inside and started heading for home. Except that I was exhausted, and fell to the floor instead. What time was it? Still night, but the soon would rise soon enough. The night fury gently lifted me up and curled me in his wings. Maybe a little bit of sleep wouldn't hurt? I surrendered and closed my eyes. Alone with a night fury, a gronkle and a nadder. Normally that meant in their jaws, but I was alive. So much had changed so fast. When I had hit Toothless a month ago, my life was supposed to turn around. Well, it had. But I hadn't meant drag all of Berk around with me. I let myself doze off beneath the dragon's warm wings.

The light came again after what felt like minutes, but now my mind was now much clearer. I got the dragons a salmon each, grabbed something for myself and headed to the forge. Gobber was asleep on his workbench, but after a bucket of cold water he was ready to listen to me.

\- We're going to attach metal blades to our spears to make them pierce it's armour.

The smith's tired eyes looked at me, at the dim light in the sky and again back at me. He mumbled something about "the Haddocks are discriminating me" but finally accepted.

\- Alright lass. I finish the nadder prosthetic and start making them.

Gobber had just followed my orders. That felt _really_ good.

The next step was something to get these upgraded spears on target. Something capable of firing large projectiles at a flying dragon. If only I knew someone that had been working on such machines _during __all_ _goddamend winter_...

Paper, charcoal, and the blueprint of the cannon that had been able to hit a night fury. This machine didn't need the precision to shoot down a night fury. It didn't need to spread a large and complicated net in the air. All it needed to do was to come into existence quickly, and in large numbers. With this mentality I removed part after part from the design until it was barely recognizable. No wheels, no aiming sight and only one spring. An hour later the bluprint was done and ready to be built by anyone who had the most basic knowledge of how a forge worked. AKA me or Gobber. We'd be facing a lot of work.

A good start, what would be next? By now the sun was well up in the sky. Yesterday felt like ages ago. No monster, no hunger, no fear for Toothless' life. Right now Astrid had just been put in the pillory, where she was meant to stay for twenty-four hours. Wait a minute...

I reached the coast just in time to see Stoick walking away after removing the lock from the pillory. For a few seconds, the girl just stayed there. Then she tried to get out. And immediately groaned in pain. She tried again, almost scraming in the process. Yes, she had been unfair and almost evil. Maybe it was fair to let her experience some pain herself. How it felt to be powerless.

Fuck that. I got there and removed the wood off her.

\- I don't need your help!

\- Sure you don't. Come on, let's get you home.

\- I can walk _myself_!

\- Show me.

She got up on her feet, and that's when I got to see just how _bad_ she had got. The burn marks had transformed into fragile light pink skin that covered a lot of her arms and face. She had bags under her eyes and deep red lines where she had been pressed against the pillory. Not to mention how she had become visibly skinnier. And don't get me started on the smell. But somehow, the fire in her eyes was still there. The look that said that with enough axes she could take on the gods. With a huff, she got on her feet and started walking away. But she didn't have an axe. Two steps later she collapsed.

\- Shit!

\- You're hungry and thirsty. I'll walk you home.

\- No. I have to see Stormfly first.

I knew she wasn't going to yield, so I put her arm on my shoulder and carried her to her dragon. She protested. But she didn't really have the strength to do much. It may have seemed strange, the vicitm helping the criminal. But for now the Berkians were getting used to everything being strange. We were soon joined by the rest of the gang. Snotlout carried her other arm (despite protests) while Tuffnut got her some much needed water. As soon as we opened the door to the pen, Astrid managed to run to Stormfly and ended up on the ground and petting her leg.

\- Oh, I'm so glad you're fine!

I exchanged looks with the other. It seemed like noone wanted to break the bad news. It was up to me then. Was there any mild way to say this?

\- We have three days to kill that monster or they will eat our dragons.

She froze. Her body started shaking. But she turned around and stood up. Always the fighter.

\- Then we'll have to kill it. Where's my axe?!

Aw, come on. Actually showing some emotion because your life is crap and your friend will likely die? Nope. Instead, _every single_ _muscle_ in Astrid's face was tense. Even sarcasm was a better coping mechanism. At this rate she was going to kill herslf. And then Ruffnut walked to her, wrapped her arm around her shoulder and talked with the most girl-talk voice I had ever heard in my life.

\- Girl, tell the truth. Did you _insult the heir_ just to get a chance to show off your pretty ass?

Astrid's normal reaction would have been to crush Ruffnut's skull and silenced any witnesses. Instead, the warrior broke down. She started screaming and crying while Ruffnut pulled her into a tight hug, gently rubbing her back.

\- It's ok. It's ok.

More tears.

\- Why?!!

\- Just let it out. Don't worry.

More screaming.

\- But Stormfly is a _good_ dragon!!!

\- And she will be fine.

More breakdown.

\- No she won't!

Said dragon gently licked her face.

\- I'm, sorry, I can't kill something like that!!!

\- You don't have to do it alone.

Astrid's eyes followed Ruff's hand as she pointed around. Snotlout. Fishlegs. Her brother. The dragons. _The_ _whole goddamned_ _village_. And lastly, me.

\- Sorry to break the news girl, but this problem ain't _just_ about you. So you're _not_ _allowed_ to face it alone. And we won't let you.

Her tear stained eyes had locked on me, and she looked confused. I gave a small smile.

\- Hiccup...

\- Yeah, that's my name.

We had spent so much time tormenting each other, and now we were supposed to cooperate. Now, there was no way Astrid was going to apologize to you (unless you were the chief and threatening her life). But the look she gave me from Tuff's arm was almost the same thing.

\- How about... we help each other... kill that thing?

\- Sure. You're not the only one with a dragon to save.

Now the others joined in. And for the first time...

\- Let's do this.

\- Let's get thst thing.

\- Let's make it explode!

\- Let's make it to run for it's life!

\- Let's _fucking_ do this!

Berk's war cry came from the dragon pen, for the first time joined by dragon roars. And for the first time, I felt hope. Killing dragons? That was what Berk was _made_ for.

The next second Astrid's body gave in. She passed out and collapsed on the floor. Great. Just, great.

The work kept on coming trough the day. Coming up with tactics. Telling the stubborn warriors that"No, Toothless is not the target. We have to get that monster instead.". Building spear cannons. Walking around among hungry villagers. Telling the oh-so-stubborn warriors that "I don't care if he's a night fury!! We have _one_ target, and it's not a normal dragon!!". A short food break. Trying to find solutions but finding new problems instead...

\- We don't even know where it is!

\- So what if we find it? Our weapons are here, how are we going to use them?

\- Alright, you pierce the skin and out comes a tiny drop of blood. Then what?!

Just to make things better, I had a father that would offer his life for his village, but wouldn't even allow me to do something even mildly risky.

\- Toothless shoud know where it is. Can I fly to it, and bait it back to Berk?

\- Are you mad?!

Before I knew it, the sun set and it got dark. I crawled into bed and fell asleep. My last thought was something about diving...

As the sun rose again, something actually happy was happening. Stormfly's prosthetic was done. And with Astrid now awake and well rested (well enough to stand up), they were finally going to fly. Necessary to fight, but also fun. A small crowd had even gathered outside the dragon pen to see the flight.

\- Just trust Stormfly. She is the more experienced flyer.

\- What else can I do? Make both of us crash down? I'll just stay on this saddle and do nothing.

\- See? Easy!

The three dragons with respective riders were finally going to fly. I petted Toothless, who garbled back. Fishlegs was talking enthusiastically to Meatlug. Astrid leaned down on her nadder and stroked her hide. The sky was mostly clear and free of any wind. It was a prefect day to fly.

\- Are you ready girl? Let's go!

After two days of being stuck on the ground, Stormfly spread it's wings and took off.

And immediately did a barrel roll far too close to the ground, almost hitting a large part of the crowd with her wings. The blonde riding her screamed.

This was followed by a zoom climb and a wide high-speed turn, while the screams turned from fear to euphoria. I decided they had had the spotlight a bit too long.

\- Let's show them who's the fastest. 'Legs, are you coming?

A night fury and a gronkle took off, and the air turned into a playground for a high-speed chase.

**This chapter was written from Hiccup's POV.**

**So I decided to end the chapter on a happy note. What do you think? In my opinion giving the characters a break sometimes helps keeping realism. It's a bit hard too keep fighting when every time you take a step it goes wrong. Plus these guys are just fifteen, and I'd be cruel to torture them _all_ the time...****Anyways, I got some criticism about Berk's population last chapter (two hundred). B said that it would be too little genetic variation to ****keep people healthy. (Rant incoming)**

**You wanna science? Let's science.**

**In 1600-1700 Sweden, the child mortality rate was 50% (ourworldindata). The film takes place far before that, on an island, with _constant dragon attacks_. It's therefore safe to assume that the mortality of Berk was _high _(50% or more). What does this have to do with gene poll?**

**Yes, genetic diseases may happen. But noone has said "Berk is a perfect island where everybody is in perfect health and only dies of old age". Plus the fact that communication with other tribes happens, and they've only been there for seven generations. Thank you for coming to my TED talk. Anyway, try to not see this rant as something personal. I'm just argumentative as hell.**

**Till next time: bye-bye**


	25. Chapter 25: Ready

**Welcome back everyone. Now, this is the last chapter before the final act (If I understand what an act is). So enjoy the calmness, as it's the last you'll see of it in a long while.** **Also, have I ever mentioned a deadline? Something like the first of July? Well, I failed. And I'm sorry. The reason? To put it simply, I have passed the deadline but not finished the story. And that is (at least partly) because I underestimated the time this took. So it will take some more time before this fic is done. But that's just the way it is.**

Toothelss swept by at high speed. Hiccup, on his back, waved happily. But I wasn't gonna let them win so easily.

\- Come on Stormfly, let's get them!

A happy chirp later her wings showed what they were _really_ made for. Soon we were soon as fast as them, and even began closing the distance. But to keep that speed, Stormfly had to push her muscles to the limit, and was breathing rapidly. I pressed myself towards her neck to make less drag. The burns on my skin hurt, but it was bearable. Slowing down and losing would just hurt more.

\- Almost there, come on!

We flew over the great hall and found ourselves over the ocean. After a little more effort, we reached the night fury. I grinned at the two surprised opponents.

\- I was expecting a bit more from a night fury! I guess that they're really nothing special!

Hiccup looked insulted. Toothless looked traumatized. I laughed happily. Until their heads turned forwards and they sped up witouth a word. Stormfly was already at the limit, so there was no hope of catching up. There was no denying it. We had lost.

\- We tried. We did the best we could've done.

An exhausted-looking Meatlug arrived to the scene thirty seconds later, so it could've been worse. And then it hit me.

\- Hey, we're flying!

I had gotten so focused in the chase that I had forgotten what we were doing. But we were hundreds of meters in the air, and moving at high speed. And surprisingly, it wasn't scary at all!

Then I looked down. The large waves that were barely visible. The huge amount of dark water. A scauldron? Okay, a little bit scary. But at the end of the day, flying wasn't that hard. _If _you left the flying part to an experienced dragon.

But Berk's dragons were meant for more than just having fun. So now we had to try hitting something. I looked over at Berk, with it's imposing cliffs. The tallest rocks were too steep and too cold to make anything useful out of them. Not even trees grew up there. But now we had dragons. The previously completely useless cliffs could now be used for target practice. I asked Hiccup for a targeting exercise. He proceeded to make us fly hundreds of metefs above Berk's mountains.

\- Alright, Try doing this!

Hiccup Haddock The Show Off III dove with his night fury onto one of the peaks, and blasted on the way down. The rock fractured from the heat, and the top of Berk got one meter lower. A zoom climb later they were back at our altitude. Fishlegs and Meatlug put on a similar show, minus the diving part. Immature show offs. But if they could blast rocks, we had to do the same.

\- See that peak Stormfly? Let's go!

We dove at high speed straight towards the cliff. The air was pushing against us hard, but we kept diving head on. I wondered how Stormfly could see, wasn't her blind spot in front of her? As we got lowered the reason came clear. Stormfly couldn't see the cliff. She wasn't aiming for the cliff. She was aiming for a particularly passive seagull that she carefully grabbed mid-air with her teeth. We joined the others after a slow climb, where the nadder proudly showed off her catch before swallowing it whole. The two dragon riders gave me amused looks while I considered jumping off to avoid the embarrassment. I couldn't manage to look at the humans, so I turned my eyes towards Stormfly.

\- That wasn't what I wanted...

The nadder examined me attentively. By now she could somewhat understand human emotions. Somewhat. She decided that I was sad, and thirty seconds later I was holding a dead seagull that she had given me to cheer me up. I did my best to ignore the boys' laughing. Stormfly was trying to be kind, and that deserved some reward.

\- So this is a gift eh? So sweet!

There was a spot under her chin that just made the dragon melt and relax. Since we were flying, I limited myself to behind her ears, but that spot would get it's fair share of attention back on the ground. I took the opportunity to throw away the seagull while her eyes were closed in bliss. Hiccup and Fishlegs were growing tired of my sweettalk so they landed on one of the peaks to observe, like if I was boring.

Not ok. Astrid was not one to fail where others succeded. And I was gonna show them.

\- But we have to try to use fire ok? So now we FIRE at ROCK.

I pointed at said rock while looking in her eyes. And she seemed to understand.

\- Good. Ready? DIVE.

This time, we kept the peak slightly to our right and out of Stormfly's blind spot. As we reached the lowest point, she snapped her head to the right to point at the peak. In doing so it went back in her blind spot, so I had to pull the trigger.

\- FIRE!

Far too late. The stream of fire passed several meters in front of the peak. Of course, my mistake was well visible to the dragon riders. But honestly... Ruffnut was right. Apparently I could _insult the heir_ just to show off my ass. In that case, I couldn't be scared of embarrassment, right? I made a mental note to punch Ruff when back on the ground.

Two hours, two precious saumons and a lot of frustration later, we were diving again. My hands were itching from the nadder's scales and my body felt sore. Fishlegs and Hiccup had found more important things to do than watching my failures and had left. But this wasn't about any of this, This was about flying. And flying well.

\- UP!

We flattened out over the treetops, slicing trough the air. Straight in front of us, a large rocky pillar, with a small pine growing from a crack in the rock.

\- Left and then the CLAW! Come on girl!

A slight left turn got the tree out of Stormfly's blind spot. As we got closer, we rolled to the left. On my command, her claw cleanly cut off the treetop,

\- Alright, CLIMB, you're doing great!

We pulled up forty-five degrees and climbed rapidly with her strong wingbeats. She decided to keep circling the pillar. Not even a minute later, we were far above it.

\- Ready? DIVE!

For a few seconds there was weightlessness. Then it became a battle against air resistance. Pressing myself towards her neck, we gained a little extra speed.

\- FIRE!

I said the word far before we reached the rock. This gave Stromfly enough time to gather fire, turn her head and shoot. The flame got out less than one meter from the cliff. A split second later it cracked, making stone shards fall to the ground. We continued the dive until the very last possible moment.

\- Aaaaand UP!

In theory, that call meant flattening out. Not this sharp and fast ninety-degree-turn that barely left any blood in my head. But we avoided the ground. We had done it.

We landed back directly in the dragon pen, where Stormfly got her real reward. I massaged Stormfly until she was a half-asleep (roughly) dragon shaped pile from which came many happy chirps. But as I was about to leave I remembered something. The prosthetic.

No matter. There was no way Stormfly would just fly away. Why would she? We had been so kind to her, except for... Cutting in her wing and forcing her to fight. But surely she wouldn't just leave, she had flown back minutes ago for Thor's sake! I looked at the nadder in front of me. Happy. But would she still be happy when I walked off to work on other things? The dragon was not only my friend. She was one of Berk's strongest assets. If I kept the prosthetic on, she would _probably_ stay. If I removed the prosthetic, she _couldn't _leave. This was not a discussion.

\- I'm sorry girl.

Careful to avoid scaring her, I pulled off the latches and removed the contraption. I started to walk when the nadder chirped again, making me turn around. Stormfly looked at her wounded wing, the prosthetic in my hands and then my face. Her eyes were curious at first, but they quicky turned to sadness. The nadder's head dropped down as she growled quietly. I walked back and petted her head, but the dragon avoided my gaze.

\- You'll get it back soon. I promise. One last battle and you can fly away.

I doubted that Berk would allow this, but I could always "accidentally" leave the prosthetic on. But for now, we needed Stormfly. With a sigh, I walked away.

\- NO, AND STOP SUGGESTING THAT!!!

\- HAVE YOU GOT ANY BETTER IDEA?!!!

Witouth a proper tactic, killing that thing would be almost impossible. For that reason, Stoick had gathered Berk's still fed warriors inside the great hall to calmly and rationally come up with a plan.

\- WE GO THERE AND WE FACE IT!! END OF THE DISCUSSION!!!

\- WE'LL DIE IN THE WATER!!! WE BRING IT TO BERK!!!

\- THAT WILL KILL EVERYONE!!! NO BATTLES WILL TAKE PLACE HERE!!!

Stoick was one of the most stubborn vikings on earth. But now Hiccup was fighting for that title too. They were trying to decide if we should sail to where the monster lived, or bring it back here to kill it. Obviously it would be easier to fight it on our own island, but that would mean having the monster back on Berk. In a few minutes, the discussion had turned into a screaming competition between the chief and the heir. Fishlegs looked to have an idea in mind and tried interuppting.

\- Hey...

\- AND HOW WILL YOU BRING IT'S MEAT BACK IF IT SINKS?!!!

\- Hey!

\- WE'LL HAVE BOATS NEARBY PLUS WE'LL STILL BE FIGHTING ON LAND!!!

What was the point of bringing other people if you didn't plan to listen? Now, Fishlegs was smart. And he deserved to be listened to. I brought my hands to my mouth and whistled loud enough to get everyone's attention.

\- I believe that Fishlegs have something he wants to say.

\- Um, yes. We can fight the monster on the other side of the island. That way we will be away from the village, who will be protected by the mountains. Also, if we hide in the forest, the monster can't find us.

An actually good idea. I started to believe it was possible to decide something.

\- But how do you expect to get it here in the first place?

Hiccup answered before 'Legs could say anything.

\- I fly there with Toothless and bait it back, just like we would have done otherwise!

\- I ALREADY TOLD THAT'S NOT GONNA HAPPEN!!!

I walked out of the great hall after three hours, feeling three years older. What had we decided? Painfully little. Lure it to the back of the island and target it's wings, while staying covered in the woods. But no actual words on _how_ that would be done. With that failure, morale suffered. And that was bad as finding, baiting and killing the monster would come down to improvisation. Improvisation that none of the stubborn, depressed warriors seemed willing to make.

I wanted to help, so I walked to the forge. The black smoke and loud clashing of metal showed someone inside. I walked in to and found Hiccup, hammering away at piece of hot metal.

\- Hey.

With his full focus on his work, the boy didn't notice me. So I talked louder and gently tapped on his shoulder.

\- Hey!

Now he noticed and turned at me. But he didn't show the usual smile.

\- I'm kinda busy right now, can we deal with... whatever this is later?

\- I want to help you.

He gave me a suspicious look.

\- Do you want to "help" by killing Toothelss or my dignity?

It was a month since the last time I had been here. I had asked for Hiccup's help to kill Toothless, and made him suffer when he refused. He didn't want things to go like last time. And he clearly hadn't forgotten.

\- Help you here, now, in the forge.

He examined me from head to toe for a good ten seconds, but finally showed the hint of a smile.

\- The fire needs wood. Also, put some more metal in there. I'll soon be done with this part and it will save time.

\- What are we building, exactly?

\- Spear leaunchers. If you need it there's a blueprint on the wall.

A glance on the wall showed it was too complicated for me to understand, so I started doing what he told me. The sound coming from the forge increased, though apart from "am I doing this right" and "no", there wasn't much talk. At some moment I thought that I was doing more messing up than helping. But he reassured me, so I kept doing my best. Between cutting wood, melting iron, and putting the two together, time flew. The time for supper came and went unnoticed. Not like there would be much to eat anyways. As the sun dropped below the horizon, Hiccup took a last swing with his hammer and let out a sigh.

\- There's not enough light to work anymore. This will have to do for today.

\- Alright.

He wiped his forehead and looked at the result_._ We had finished four spear launchers. With another two that had been built yesterday, that made six. Reaching just below my shoulders and weighing a dozen kilos, the weapon was built around the central metal spring. Almost everything else was wood, made to keep up the tension until you fired.

\- I know. They're crude.

Hiccup was also examining his work, and seemed dissaponted. Crude. Oh, come on now. So I walked in front of him, looked him straight in the eyes and punched his shoulder.

\- Ow! What was that for?!

\- Throwing rocks by hand is crude. But your machine is so much more than! I mean, what else can throw a spear as fast as an arrow! This is a masterpiece. And you can't deny it.

No matter how much he tried to hide it, the biggest smile I had ever seen slowly grew on his face.

\- Oh, if only you had seen the bola cannon...

\- What was it?

\- What I used to shoot down Toothelss

His gaze turned to the night sky outside the window, and he gave a long sigh. Thinking back, being the first viking to shoot down a night fury hadn't made him happy at all. This got me wondering about a few hours ago.

\- Hiccup?

\- Yeah?

\- You seemed upset when I first came here. What was it about?

Hiccup's groaned and leaned his face in his hands. He mumbled several incomprehensible things below his breath, and none of them sounded happy.

\- Hmmp.

\- What?

\- It's just that... mmm.

\- Come on, I want to know.

\- Stoick doesn't want this battle to happen.

Ok, that made no sense at all.

\- Yeah, it's not like his _life_ _goal_ is to find the nest and end the war. That was never important for him.

\- You don't understand.

There was a long pause as Hiccup looked around the room, as to make sure noone was listening.

\- He wants to kill the monster, but not like this. He wants more planning, more men, more dragons, and he doesn't want me to...

And that's what I remembered. Stoick was the chief, but also something more. He was a father.

\- ...He doesn't want you to die, because he's your dad. And he loves you.

Hiccup face contracted at my words. And then he spoke bitterly.

\- He loves me so much that he'll kill my best friend. I'm so fucking grateful for his love, really makes me happy.

\- You're wrong. We are going to battle tomorrow and Stoick will lead us.

Hiccup just shook his head.

\- Stoick will lead us in battle after months of intense planning and training. And after I have been lockend in a safe building and Toothless has become food. Because we can always enslave new dragons, but he's only got one son. Oh, is there anything more beautiful than a father-son bond?

Hiccup was just paranoid, seeing things were they were none. There was no way he was right. But what _if_ he was right? No problem. It would only mean that killing the monster would be easier, with more preparations, and more resources. However...

\- And you should know: they will kill Stormfly and Meatlug too.

\- Except that you're wrong! Have you got _any_ proof?

\- Think about the tactic meeting today. Stoick was tryìng to make sure we didn't come up with anything.

No, that wasn't true. He was just pointing out that some options were bad. In the Haddock way. But he didn't try giving his own ideas. In fact, he spent most of his time undermining other ideas. But that meant nothing. It could simply be the way he acted. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed possible. Still, far from certain, but possible.

But then, why did Hiccp seemed so relaxed? I had broken down after finding out of the likely death of Stormlfly, but Hiccup just seemed slightly upset. This could only mean one thing. He had a plan.

\- Let's suppose you're right. What are you gonna do about it?

\- Somethign stupid. Definitely somethign stupid.

As the light faded away, there was one last thing to do. Forty-eight hours ago, Berk had experienced it's worst raid since anyone could remember. In the aftermath, nobody had bothered taking care of the dead. Until now. The twelve bodies had been placed on a longboat that would be burned, and we were gathered on the beach to give our final goodbyes before the boat was launched. Stoick was giving another one of his speeches.

\- May the gods give our fallen friends a safe trip to their eternal reward.

I was standing together with the other teens, with my arms wrapped around Tuffnut's back. One of the victims was one of the twin's cousin, a little girl named Nosnut. Safe and sound in my arms, Tuffnut let her tears show, while Snotlout took care of Ruff. The twins hadn't mentioned anything about their cousin until now, not wanting to bother us with more problems. Fishlegs and Hiccup were standing aside and talking quietly.

\- Two days ago, a raid came. But this time, among the devils there was something much bigger and deadlier.

"The devils". He didn't mention that three of these same devils were fighting on our side. Why couldn't Berk understand that dragons weren't inherently evil?

\- This monster fired on our warriors and on our houses. Despite our warriors' best efforts, twelve souls didn't survive the night.

I felt a pang in my chest. _I_ had made the monster fire on our huts. I had tried to ignore that thought. But maybe it was right. Maybe Nosnut would still be alive if it weren't for me. And Tuffnut wouldn't be broken. Killing six of my own people. The pain in my chest increased. Oh, and let's not forget I Hiccup. The viking that had shot down a night fury, the deadliest dragon of all. And what had I done with him? Manipulated and threatening him. Oh, what a great viking I was. I fought to keep back my hold tears, focusing on taking care of Ruff instead.

\- But we are not going to give up. We will strike back, and strike back hard!

Alright, fine. Yes, I had been an awful viking. But guilt wasn't gonna help. I had more important things to do. Like fighting. That despite what Hiccup thought, seemed to be happening tomorrow, since Stoick was talking about an immediate threat. Right?

\- No matter the costs or the sacrifices required, we will fight! And we will keep fighting until we have removed our enemies and the world is safe!

No, no no! These were not the words of someone who was going to have the most important battle in his life tomorrow! But we couldn't wait! Not witouth turning my poor Stormfly to steak! I hardened my grip and closed my eyes, locking out the outside world. Pretending it didn't exist. I did not want to hear anything, see anything or feel anything. But even then, an image of Stormfly enter my brain. She had a spear in her throat and was bleeding to death. I imagined myself walking up to her and hugging her huge head, and never letting go. I pressed my ear against her jaws, and heard her trying to whisper something with all her strength. I tried to listen, and after a few attempts, I understood it. She wasn't using chirping or growl, but speaking like any other viking. The words were "Astrid, I can't breathe...".

\- Astrid, you're choking her!!!

My eyes sprang open and I jumped back from Ruffnut, afraid of what I had done to her. The girl was panting hard, but was still alive. I had hugged her _way_ too hard. Her brother had been the one to shout at me to stop.

\- Ruff! I'm so sorry!

Ruffnut looked at me with tear stained eyes. Had I done another horrible thing and lost a friend? But she just shook her head. She chuclked and gave me a light punch in the chest, saying "be more careful next time.". I smiled, just as Stoick's speech ended.

\- May the gods take good care of our fallen, and grant us victory in the challenges that await us.

The longboat, stopped of it's sails and cargo was pushed off the beach. Once in the water, two maidens rowed it away from shore until it was certain the boat wouldn't drift back. The two set the boat ablaze with their two torches and swam back to shore. The entirety of Berk's population was looking at the flames from the coast. Sad, defeated, hungry. Nobody said a world. As the fire burned out, the only sound came from the howling of the wind.

The night passed and the new day came. Our small food supply was completely finished at breakfast, and the final preparations were made for the battle that wasn't ever going to happen. The warriors made their way to the woods at the back of the island with the spear launchers, and the remaining Berkians hid in the forest right next to Berk. A lone longboat set sail to bait the monster back to Berk, though the Berkians had understood that it wasn't going to work. The best the sailors could hope for was not finding anything, as finding the monster would most likely mean death. But there was something else. In the sky above the village flew the night fury and his rider. Passing low to the ground, he gave one last order to his village.

\- I will bait it here. Get ready.

**This chapter was written from Astrid's POV.**

**And _you_ get ready too.**

**I know, cliché, but I couldn't resist. I hope you enjoyed, and till next time: bye-bye**


	26. Chapter 26: Up

**I forgot to write the POV in the previous chapter, and I'm sorry. Anyways, it was Astrid's and ****I've now written it in.**

**Now, new topic. Who flies best, The Red Death or Toothless? In this chapter, their flying abilities are compared. Now, since I have never seen a night fury or green death in real life, I'll have to imagine how they fly. Now follows a short physics session to explain why the two fly like they do in this fic. Can you skip it? You can always skip the entire AN if you want, so yes.**

**T****he Red Death is bigger than Toothless. Now, this matters, a lot. If you scale up an object n times, it's length gets n times bigger, it's surface n*n times bigger and it's volume n*n*n times bigger. This leads to the fact that scaling up an object increases it's volume/surface ratio. To simplify, let's assume that Toothless and The Red Death have the same shape and density, and that the queen is 10 times larger. This would give the Red Death a 10 times higher weight/drag ratio, resulting in... higher speed (higher weight means more muscles). The Red Death is faster than Toothless in this fic. Now, a myriad of factors (less streamlined, the exponential increase of drag with sleed...) act against her when she gets up to speed. So she won't be _10 times faster_ than Toothless, not even close to that. But still faster.**

**_But_. She has, by the same logic, 10 times higher weight/wing area. It means that her wings are really small for her weight. In reality, it's unfeasible something that big would fly. But this is a fic so she can fly. Still, that doesn't give you a lot of wings to play with.** **Toothless will therefore have the edge in a lot of situations. Will our heroes be able to use this? Call me a nerd and ejoy:**

How much time did Berk need to get ready? The warriors were already standing by their weapons. They weren't expecting a battle, but that was also true in raids. And the monster had to live beyond the horizon, so it would take some time to get it here anyways. There was no reason to wait.

\- Alright Toothless. Let's get it.

The night fury gave a determined croo and pumped his wings, heading south. I gave one last look at the village trough the fog. Vikings were shouting at us to turn back, words that I made sure to ignore. Because I couldn't turn back. They would tare me away from Toothless, to stop me causing more trouble. After that, it would only be a matter of time before their hungry eyes turned towards the night fury. But when up in the air, they couldn't catch us. So we were going to stay up here until we had brought something else that Berk could sink it's teeth in. Or crashed down.

Crashing. Crashing into the water. The more I thought about the scenario, the more my heart hurt. I would die, of course. But the others wouldn't have an easy time either. I imagined Stoick, desperately looking at the sky, hoping for something that wasn't coming. He wouldn't even get a body. How much time would it take until he gave up? And what about then? Meatlug and Stormfly, dead. The raids would keep coming. The more I thought abot that, the more I tried to ignore it. Life was gonna be fine. It had to.

My face got all wet from flying trough the air. It wasn't raining, but the air was filled with tiny droplets. It was basically one big raincloud at ground level. That could be a problem. The warriors manning the spear launchers would have a hard time seeing. Hopefully the monster would be a big enough target. As we rose over the clouds, the mountains were the only thing showing there was an island behind us.

Pressed against the night fury's neck, I couldn't do much expect a few slight adjustments to the prosthetic. Toothless seemed to know where he was going, giving me plenty of time to think. Fishlegs had told me everything he had seen about the monster, and this promised some challenges. The mighty night fury was the fastest dragon of them all, and that was just common knowledge, three days ago. Before a much bigger dragon was discovered. His exact words were "It can go fast and maybe it can also go really fast, if we're unlucky.". And luck had been somewhat lacking in the lat few days.

A rock formation poked out of the clouds in front of us. Had we flown in a circle and returned back to Berk? But this was not Berk. The stones were much darker, and in a completely different shape. It was like the top of a hill, with a big hole in it. A big, monster-sized hole. It was too dark to see if there was anything inside, but what else could be hiding in there?

\- Alright bud. Lure it out.

The night fury was nervous, his eyes inspecting everything and regularly returning to the hole. But he was also determined, and did what I told him to. From a slow glide over the rocks, Toothless roared the loudest I had ever heard him, the tone not kind at all, like an insult. But we got no response.

\- We have to make it angry. Tell it it's a weakling who didn't even manage to hurt us.

Was Toothless capable of understanding my words and roaring them to the monster? I had no idea. But it couldn't hurt trying. As Toothless roared again, a low growl came from inside the hill.

\- Tell it it's evil and selfish since it attacks other dragons.

Or was it? If I remebered right, we had attacked first. First thrown spears, then a plasma blast and then Stormfly's fire. What was the difference between it and the other raiding dragons? What made it deserve death more than those other dragons? In a way, regular vikings were much more fair. They just killed everything, witouht giving anyone better or worse treatment than the others. Just one thing. We had seen it _once_, and then it had acted just like a regular raider. But that raid had come just after the biggest dragon massacre in seven generations, when help was needed the most. What had it been doing the rest of the time? Unless if it was an act of the gods, that thing couldn't be four days old. We just didn't know enough about it to know if it was evil or not.

Toothless either didn't care or had already made up his mind. He roared once more. With his roar came the sound of rumbling. Something was moving down there, but it still didn't come out. Our glide took us straight above the hole, and started I could see things down there. In particular, dragons. Over a dozen regular dragons, looking up at us. And that was just closest to the surface.

\- Tell it is the reason everyone suffers, and that it deserves to die.

This time, the roar was did not receive any reaction. We glided even closer, but nothing had changed. Why? Something inside my head came up with a theory. Maybe it didn't think it deserved to die, and thus chose to ignore us. In that case, would it deserve what we were about to do? What would the gods think? Or maybe, I just had to find a better insult.

\- Tell it it stinks like rotten fish.

From the darkness in the depths of the hole came a monstrous head. And two monstrous wings and a monstrous body heading at _very_ high speed up towards us.

\- TOOTHLESS RUN!!!

Two strong wing flaps got us away from the hole. We dove as low as the hill allowed, and stayed close to the ground. I glanced back. The monster was out of the hole and locked it's eyes on us.

\- Let's get to Berk.

Toothless gave a roar and we turned north. In a few seconds we were sweeping across the open sea.Toothless put everything could in his wings while I kept the prosthetic fin steady. Behind us, the big dragon was flying at it's fastest in a pursuit. Despite the clouds, it was well visible just because of it's size.The baiting seemed to work well.

But it was getting closer.

We had started with a big advantage over it. But now, not even a minute had passed and it was almost in firing range. The trip here from Berk had taken almost twenty minutes. We weren't going to make it.

\- Toothless, any idea?

I looked back. I could see the skin on it's head, and the burn mark we had done in the last battle. The fog did nothing to hide the glacing stare from it's many eyes. It's mouth opened. Orange light came from the back of it's throat. I did the only thing we could. The pedal all the way back. Maximum downlift from the prosthetic. Part of the heat from the fire reached my back, but we were too fast for it too reach us.

Within a few seconds, we had turned around are were sweeping by the left side of it's head. But we weren't any closer to Berk.

\- I really need your help bud! What do we do?!

The night fury's growl turned my eyes away from the monster. His head was pointing upward, where I directed my gaze. But as much as I looked at the sky I couldn't see anything.

\- What do you mean? What is up there?!

\- Croo-o-oo!

\- Don't insult me!

Toothless decided that enough was enough, and set his tail into action to point up. Finally I understood, and did the same with the prosthetic. We shot up from the clouds with the target on our heels.

\- But why?

Toothless growled, but that didn't help me understand. Up here was nothing. Nothing to hide behind or that could be used as cover. There wasn't even any clouds to block us from it's view! There wasn't even much air...

Air that our _very__ heavy_ opponent desperately needed to fly.

\- Buddy, you're a genius!

A stream of fire appeared right in front of us, forcing me and the genius to do an evasive manouver, passing besides it's head and _under_ it's left wing. This close, it couldn't fire at us witouth burning itself. But we couldn't last loke this forever. Up high, we would breathe. We just had to make it there.

The next moments were the most agonizing minutes in my life. We were trying to gain altitude, while fighting against the many thing that could kill us. I hated every manouver we made as it took away energy and brought us further from our goal. But we didn't want it be cooked. My left leg hurt from controlling the pedal and my hands got more and more sweaty, making holding on to Toothless harder and harder. But we were making progress.

And with progress came the air. Or lack thereof. The best thing to do was making big, controlled breaths. Luckily the I didn't have anything else to worry about, and could focus entirely on managing my breathing. There was totally no big threat on our tail that required all my attention if I wanted to stay alive.

Another sfream of fire, coming straight up towards us. But it was quite far away. A zoom climb brought us above the fire. As I looked down, a grin forked on my face. The big, scary monster, was below us. It's wings were batting quickly, but they weren't making enough force in the thin air. It couldn't get any higher. I finally breathed out. That was kinda important up here.

\- Well done. Now we go to Berk.

The monster had to really hate us, as it stayed right beneath us, ready to strike, the entire journey to the island. If I hadn't been so busy, I would have feel offended. Right now, I was just glad for that. It made our job easier. I kept myself calm, focusing on breathing, and thinking about what was to come.

Tall cliffs welcomed us back home, the only thing sticking out above the clouds. The ground was hidden... We had been gone for fifty minutes. Would the warriors be ready?

A pang of guilt built up in my chest. Dad. Fifty minutes of not knowing if I was alive, and with nothing to do to help. How we he feeling? Desperate? Hopeless? Powerless?

But that wasn't the Stoick I knew. He would not act like that. Instead, he would make sure the village was as ready as possible _if_ we got back. The most stubborn viking on earth wasn't just going to accept that there was nothing he could do. The village was as ready as it could ever be. Only one problem. The monster wasn't going let us go down there easily. It lurked below us, ready to strike at the first opportunity.

\- Hiccup?!

Fishleg's voice was barely audible from the distance. I looked down. Him and his gronkle were flying just above the fog. Of course. You could't see anything from the ground. To counter this, Berk's two remaining dragons were acting as spotters, flying above all obstructions. Astrid and Stormfly were also up here, looking for us on the other side of the island. Toothless and I were no longer alone.

\- Fishlegs! Up here!

\- I'll tell everyone!

He disappeared below the clouds to make sure the village knew about us coming back. Once he was done, there was nothing left to wait for. I took those last few moments to pet Toothless' scales. The night fury purred back. It was surprisingly calm. Neither we or the monster could do anything but to wait. The nadder circled right below it, ready to dive down if it decided to switch targets. But that didn't happen. Time passed slowly. The light reflected on the top of the fog, making it seen like a huge, white soft piece of fur. And eventually, our third dragon came back up to inform us that time was up.

\- We're ready!

Our dragons? They were in sight of the target right now. Ready. Our warriors? Standing by the spear launchers, prepared

to fire at it's wings. Ready. The rest of Berk? Hidden in the forest adjacent to Berk and protected by the fog. Ready. The gods? I had prayed to them during the way back, and loads of warriors had likely done the same. Ready. Me? Well, I _did_ feel kinda nervous. And afraid. And low on breath, though that could just be the altitude. Oh well. Ready.

There was a moment of weightlessness as we dropped our altitude. We were still out of it's firing range, but just barely. This got all of it's attention. It stalked closer, ready to flame, with it's six eyes fixed on us. They weren't fixed on the nadder silently gaining altitude behind it's back.

Since it's sight was busy, it's smell and hearing was all it could use detect incoming threats. And they did. Two of it's eyes started to move towards the nadder, and it's body tensed up. One second too late. Stormfly released her fire on it's lower body. The monster roared in pain and anger and turned it's attention towards the attacker. Away from us.

\- Go!

After my call, Tothless flipped upside down and took a strong flap, propelling us downwards. By actively using the wings to accelerate downwards, we could start the dive just that _little_ bit faster. On our way down, we swept by the monster. And just for good measure, we left a plasma blast on the head, right on it's previous burn mark.

This immediately got the monster on us. But as it dove down to catch us, it recieved a hard ball of molten rock on it's wing. Meatlug and Fishlegs had joined the fight. The attack continued in the same way. Every time the target was about to release it's flames on one of us, one or two dragons gave _it_ their blast. Except for that one time when me and Toothless _clawed _it instead. The night fury passed just below it's right wing and used the claws on his hind paw to slash the monster's skin. It worked, opening a small wound, but I decided it was too risky to try again. We had almost crashed into it's head and it's body and it's wing. And it's clubbed tail. But overall, all the fire hadn't made much damage. Burn marks and dead skin, but nothing deeper. And after having understood this, the monster began countering our strategy. It fired at it's target and ignored our basically harmless blasts. The first two fire streams missed, but it couldn't last in the long run. Luckily we had other weapons.

\- Astrid, Fishlegs! Get down!

Berk's three dragons dove into the cloud on the northern side of the island. Underneath, the spear launchers were aimed at the sky and ready to make some real damage. Things were looking good. Though the wet air wasn't pleasant. I felt cold water coming in _everything_ and had to squint to see anything. More importantly, we were flying just above the forest, and I was barely able to distinguish the trees. The fog made it very hard to see.

But this was actually an advantage. Our enemy was _big_ and would be impossible to miss as soon as it got close enough. On the other hand, three small dragons flying in the fog were going to be hard to spot. Not impossible, especially with six eyes, but hard. I was going to use this. Fast in, plasma blast, fast out. And on the way out, turn towards the spear cannons. The monster can't hit you because you're too fast, and in the meantime it's flying towards it's doom. I noticed something else. The last blast had been considerably smaller. We were running out of fire.

Let's say that you have a bow and are aiming at a fifty meter large target that's twenty meters above you. Now, to make things easier, you don't have to keep the bow's tension yourself. You just have to pull a trigger to fire. Do you miss or do you hit? On an completely unrelated note, all six spears missed the monster's wings, even though and one of them almost hit _Toothless_. I groaned in exasperation.

The cannons could be reloaded and fired again. That would take some time, but there were more spears and not many more options. We kept hiding in the clouds, and soon more sperars started to fly. Stoick, hidden somewhere in the forest, shouted helpful orders like "don't miss" and "aim better". And eventually, the warriors obeyed, and the first proectiles started to hit.

The first spear hit it's underside. Not the right place, but still a hit. It opened a small wound. Hopefully, the first hit of many. As we passed besides it's head once more, I heard the _clang _of a cannon as another spear shot straight up. Trough it's left wing.

As time passed, more and more hole holes and wounds appeared on it's body. It became visibly worried, flying more aggressively and firing as soon as there was a miniscule chance of hitting. Of course, it didn't. There was plenty of time to dodge. And it couldn't hit the spear cannons either. They were hidden by the fog and the trees, and even I hadn't been able to spot them. There was no denying it now. We were gonna kill it. It was only a question of when. I was starting to get bored.

The monster landed in the forest, and adrenaline immediately filled me up once more. Why had it done so? As I looked as it's eyes scanning the trees, I realized the reason. From the ground, it would be much easier to identify exactly where the spears came from. And once found, the machines wouldn't be a match for that thing. I had to stop this. Swooping down over the treetops, towards were Stoick was (or rather, where I believed he was), I shouted "hold your fire". Maybe there was a better solution, but that would have to wait until people weren't about to die.

In an unprecedented show of viking intelligence, people understood what was going on. The warriors manning the closest machine stopped their fire, thus avoiding being spotted, while the others started to fire only when the eyes were turned the other way. And all of this was done in below a minute with just a few hasty orders. It was even done mostly witouth my help. This would have caused reduction in firepower, but now that the target wasn't moving it became easier to hit. More spears were hitting now. The time it had left to live was rapidly running out.

Realizing how serious the situation was, it decided to escape. Within ten seconds it was above of the spear launchers' range. But it's wings we're hurt. High pressure air from below the wings flowed trough the holes towards the low pressure air above. The flow made a awful screeching whistle that rivaled the one Toothless made when he dived. Right now, the holes were small enough not to completely hinder it's flight. But that was about to change.

Desperate to get away from these machines, the monster had flown straight upwards, out of the fog. Astrid, Fishlegs and I followed. Up here, the last part of the plan could be done. I yelled what to do to the other dragon riders.

\- Aim for the wings! With some luck, they'll be torn apart!

It was a crude plan, but simple and effective. After all, flying was not dangerous. If you crashed, it meant you were On the ground. That would be the monster's end.

The tree dragons started making laps around it. Not so close to risk crashing, but close enough to stop it from firing accurately. Once we came around to it's wing, we swooped in and released a small plasma blast at point-blank range. Toothless couldn't manage a bigger explosion, so we had to get really close to make some damage. But it was worth it. Now a patch of it's wing was charcoal black.

The attempt of one last blast did nothing. All the blasts had completely emptied the night fury's fuel. I locked eyes with him for a moment. The large pupils showed worry, a bit of tiredness and surprisingly, guilt. Same old Toothless. We had fought a very deadly dragon for soon forty minutes, and Toothless was feeling guilty for starting to get tired. Despite all the danger we were in, I took a small moment to scratch the skin behind his ear.

\- Don't worry bud. You did awesome, and the others will finish what's left.

This seemed to please him. We then proceeded to fly in front of the monster's face, like some annoying fly, which pleased him even more. And it was useful. We took attention away from the gronkle and nadder, who did have fire left. The only thing left to do was to holding on to the saddle until it's wings ripped apart.

Too bad that they didn't. Despite all the holes and fire, the wings held. Within a few minutes, Meatlug had run out of shots, Stromfly was almost empty, but the wings were whole. The whistle was still there, but the monster stayed airborne. It had fled upwards and was now at the same height as Berk's tallest cliffs. I noted how this was much lower than when we first got here. A careful look revealed why.

The wings had not ripped apart. But they weren't in _good_ shape either. Several thin, but long cracks parted from the holes and spread trough the skin. I could see the clouds below trough them. In other words, we were close. If I could only put those wings under a liiittle more stress... A plan hatched in my mind.

\- Astrid, Fishlegs!

\- What?

\- I'll dive! Make sure it follows me!

There was a long pause, and I could understand why. Right now, the monster's attention was split on three dragons. As a result, it barely fired, and when it did it missed. Witouht the nadder and gronkle a hit was much more likely. But Toothless and I had done this before. We could do it.

\- Got it bud? We dive and bring it down down with us.

The roar he gave back was _not_ half-hearted. Meatlug and Stormfly had flown off. Alright. No reason to wait. To make sure it would follow us down, we to attacked it's back with claws. After the cut, we continued to follow it's lenght towards it's head. Once there, we flipped upside down to dive downwards. For a moment, I was looking at all six eyes. As we continued down, I was looking at it's teeth. Teeth... The mouth was open. There was some light in it. It was about to fire...

Toothless rolled around violently. He wanted to use his his body to protect me from the fire. The stream of light was all around me, but the night fury acted as a screen to shield me. There was only one problem. Toothless had rolled around _hard_. So hard that he had thrown me off his neck.

**This chapter was written from Hiccup's POV.**

**Can you guess the next chapter's name? Thank you for reading this. Now we're close to the end. Only 2 chapters left epilogue. I hope you enjoyed and till next time: bye-bye**


	27. Chapter 27: Down

"Us night furies have fireproof scales" was something my family had told me when I was a hatchling. The queen's methane fire right on my belly and wings caused an unsupportable pain that proved them wrong. It felt like a million stone needles pushing into my skin. If I somehow managed to live long enough to have my own hatchlings I wouldn't teach them that bullshit. Sure, the scales isolated the heat. A little bit. Too much fire did hurt. I was even forced to keep my eyes closed to stop the heat from entering them.

But after a few impossibly long seconds, it was over. I opened my eyes and happily took in the product of my work. Hiccup was falling a few meters from me, alive. He had not been turned into grilled meat. A smile formed on my teeth. Wait. He was falling a few meters from me and NOT ON MY BACK! It didn't make sense! How was I still flying if he didn't control the prosthetic?! I turned my head to roar at him...

And immediately entered a flat spin, witouht the prosthetic to keep me stable. BAD. Most of my speed was immediately gone, leaving me as an easy target. Despite all the danger, I took a moment to think.

I was up high in the air.

I couldn't fly.

The Red Death was about to flame/chomp me.

The queen's wings were almost broken.

I had to get away _fast_.

The solution? Gravity.

I threw my wings as far back as I could. My tail did the same. I pushed my head forwards. The purpose was to act like an arrow. All the mass was forwards and all the drag was backwards. The result would be the much needed stability. Within a few seconds, I was no longer spinning and started to fall down. Witouth Hiccup, I couldn't fly. But I _could_ fall with style.

I looked at the ground. Or rather, at the clouds that covered it. It was about four hundred meters away, approaching fast. I couldn't survive a crash at dive speed. So I would have to slow down before that. How? I couldn't fly.

A flat spin. Not controlled, but it did make a _lot_ of drag. And I was capable of doing so. It would slow me down enough. Hopefully.

I was brought out of my thoughts by fire. It came from behind me. All the pain made it hard to think, but I forced myself to ignore it.

This was methane fire.

The queen was diving behind me.

This was when I remembered Hiccup's plan. We had damaged her wings a lot, and if she tried to pull out of the dive they would rip apart and she would crash. If she didn't pull out, she would crash. I clenched my teeth. The queen had just sealed her own fate.

But if I wasn't careful, she would seal _my_ fate too! I had to find a way to survive! And right now, that meant getting away from the fire. It was now all around me, forcing me to close my eyes and nostrils. I pulled my wings closer, trying to make as little air resistance as possible. I just needed a little extra speed. A few agonizing seconds later, I shot out of the fire. I could finally reopen my eyes and see how much time I had left before impact.

Answer: not very much at all. I was already in the fog, low enough do distinguish trees. I flared my wings. Witouth the tail fin, I couldn't keep control, and entered the flat spin. The air slowed me down. And then it hit me.

Pine needles, twigs, branches and the forest floor. It hurt, I was bleeding, but still in one piece. But as I looked upwards, my heart was about to stop. Our plan meant for the Red Death to collide with the ground at high speed. Well, I was on said ground now.

**This chapter was written from Toothless' POV.**

**Important question. Do you want me to kill Toohtless or not? I have two possible endings. If you have an opinion, let me know in the reviews. Till next time bye-bye.**


	28. Chapter 28: Pain

**Ok, this took a while. Well over two weeks. But now it's here. And while this was a long and difficult chapter to write, I'm very pleased with the result. I hope you will be too.**

Hiccup was no longer on Toothless' back. Meatlug was too slow and too far away. If I didn't save him, he hit the ground and die. Luckily, saving him wasn't so hard. I just had to make Stormfly fly down there and grab him.

But what if I didn't?

Hiccup had become an icon in Berk. After all, he had shot down _and_ ridden a night fury. He was liked by both the dragon friendly Berkians and the more traditional warriors. All the doubt about him being a suitable chief had been pushed away by the last week's events. He was going to get the throne. _Unless_ if he died.

I would stop the incompetent boy from getting the throne, and all damage that would follow. Maybe I could get the position myself. But would Hiccup really be such a bad chief? Much of what he had managed to change in the last week was actually positive. On the other hand, he still lacked many important skills. Strength, long term planning...

"Astrid, what the actual fuck?!!"

Those words screamed in my brain. Had I seriously _considered_ leaving someone to die?!

\- Stormfly, DIVE to HICCUP.

I would save him. Why? There was possibly a million reasons to, but I didn't have the time to ponder them now. So until I wasn't in a time crunch, I would save him because I could. As I pressed myself up against the nadder's neck, I made sure to tell her what do do.

\- Stormfly, NO FIRE on him.

Hiccup was falling slower than expected. He had spread his arms and legs like wings to make as much drag as possible, thus giving us a few more precious seconds. They were going to be needed. He was already in the clouds, and we were barely half-way there. I punched myself mentally. Not only had I pondered essentially killing Hiccup, I had wasted time doing that.

During the last few moments of the dive, a collison made enough sound to shake the island. Maybe it was the monster crashing into the ground. Anyway, irrelevant. The war of seven generation may had ended, but there were more important matters right now. The trees became visible trough the fog, with Hiccup about twenty meters from us. To keep Hiccup in the nadder's field of view, we were heading slightly to the right of him.

\- CATCH!!!

Stormfly swung her head to the left and catched Hiccup's left leg with her jaws. We were still diving at full speed, but that wasn't a problem for the experienced nadder. Witouht any command, she made a hard pull up, Hiccup dangling from her jaws. I could see the treetops streaking below us. In less than two seconds, we were calmly gliding over the forest.

\- Hiccup!

The desperate voice was Stoick's. Seeing his son falling towards death had had to have been pretty traumatizing for him. Luckily, Hiccup was alive. We flew towards the voice and handed Hiccup to his father, who was standing next to Gobber and a spear cannon. We landed ourselves, and I stepped down to observe the scene. It was nice, a little family reunion.

But something was horribly wrong.

Hiccup's eyes were closed, his face contracted in pain. He wasn't speaking, just making incoherent noises, and his father was sobbing. In a split second I found the cause.

A series of deep wounds in his left leg caused by Stormfly's teeth. The hard pull up had further ripped the skin, and large amounts of blood were flowing onto the ground.

\- Stoick, we need to get him to a healer _now_.

Stoick looked at me, his face broken. His cold eyes immediately flashed in anger when he saw me, but after a moment he gave in and odded silently. He quickly used his vest to make a makeshift bandage that he pressed onto the wound to slow down the bleeding.

\- You're right. I'll carry him there.

Tehere was a problem. We were on the northern side of the island, and the healer was in the village, in the south. It was about five kilometres away, and carrying him on foot would take too long.

\- Flying is faster . Give him to me, and I'll take him to Gothi on my dragon.

At this point, Stoick's eyes locked on me, rapidly narrowing. As he spoke, his voice was stil controlled, but full of poison.

\- I am not letting you or your dragon anywhere near my son. Not after what you usually do to others. Dissapear before I get angry.

Oh no. He wasn't going to allow anything. I gave on more look at Hiccup. He was getting pale, and despite the bandage, more blood was flowing out of him. Furthermore, the wound could have been infected. Nadder teeth weren't exactly the cleanest. My adrenaline level was once more increasing. I pleaded to the chief one more time, trying to get some sense in the _very_ emotional father.

\- Stoick, please! We don't have much time!

\- NO, GO AWAY!

Bad. There seemed to be no way to reason with him.

\- He'll _die_ if you don't let me carry him!

\- YOU are not touching MY SON!!! GO AWAY BEFORE I SEND YOU TO THE GALLOWS!!!

He was out of it completely. I looked around desperately for anything that could help. My eyes fell on Gobber. The smith looked as distressed as me. He wanted to save Hiccup, but didn't know how. But together, we could do it. I was afraid of what Stoick would do to me afterwards, but I would have to take it.

\- Gobber?

He nodded silently and positioned himself behind the chief.

Ever since Berk was settled, a law hindered women from becoming chiefs. I had always thought it was a stupid and outdated rule. If a woman was stronger and smarter than male counterparts, wouldn't it be better for her to rule? I had never thought that this rule could actually work in my advantage. But today, it did. The kick I delivered between the chief's legs wouldn't have been nearly as effective on a chieftess.

Stoick screamed in pain while his hands left Hiccup, which I promptly grabbed. The chief tried to swipe at me but was held back by Gobbers organic and less organic limbs. This stalled him long enough for me to fly away with Hiccup in my arms. Stoick had nothing more he could do, and thus proceeded to shout promises of pain and profanities that would make the twins jealous. But words weren't going to make us turn around.

\- Stormfly, to the village. Quick.

The nadder immediately started the journey, doing her part as best she could. I let her take care of the flying and focused on Hiccup. He was breathing methodically, trying to keep himself awake. And shaking. All of his body was shaking. It was obvious he was in great pain. I squeezed the bandage with my elbow to slow down the bleeding, barely keeping myself on Stormfly.

\- Hiccup, how's it going?

Surpsingly, he answered. But his voice was very weak.

\- Did you re

His words were interrupted by a groan of pain as I changed my grip on the wound. But I had too. Far too much was leaking from there. By now, my hands were bathing in red.

\- Did you really have to kick my dad like that?

- "This is war babe. What else was I gonna do?"

He squeezed his teeth to suppress another pained sound. His eyes were now closed, but he didn't make an effort to reopen them. And then a smile formed in his face.

\- You're wrong. The war is over.

Wait, what? I hadn't noticed. But as I looked at the monster, it was obvious. Fishlegs, Meatlug and a bunch of warriors were going at it, hitting and cutting it's already ripped body. If it was somehow still alive, that would soon change. According to Hiccup's theory, the dragons only raided to bring it food. And now that it was gone, the raids, and thus the war, had ended. Bummer. We couldn't use Gobber's quote anymore.

\- Seems like you're right. Hey, you didn't get this mild injury for nothing!

Hiccup snorted at that.

\- Will you still call it a "mild injury" if I die?

At that word, I froze. What would happen then? Stoick seemed ready to murder me after that kick. My only excuse was having made it to save Hiccup's life. If the bleeding boy in my arms died...

\- You're not dying. End of discussion.

Hiccup didn't answer. Somehow, that was not reassuring.

One minute later, we were diving towards Gothi's hut. Good. Hiccup was barely awake, his breathing laboured. The healer had hidden in the woods during the battle, but as soon as she saw the monster falling out of the sky, she had returned to the best place for her to work, correctly predicting the arrival of wounded. Stormfly made a gracious landing in front of the building, into which I rushed with Hiccup on my shoulders. I hadn't even laid him down onto one of the beds before Gothi was on him, examining what had to be done.

\- He's been bitten by a deadly nadder and lost a lot of blood. Please save him.

The mute healer pointed towards the outside and at Stormfly. I didn't understand what she wanted at first, until I noticed all the blood on my dragon's teeth. And how my nadder was free to move however she wanted. I quickly connected the dots and tried to imagine and answer any questions Gothi might have.

\- Yes, by _that_ nadder. No, it's not dangerous to leave her there. And the war has ended a few minutes ago, so there's no more risks for dragon attacks.

Seemingly pleased with my information, the healer set to work. But despite all the effort she put in to keep up Hiccup's blood and energy, the boy's breathing got fainter and fainter. Somehow, Hiccup had been in a relatively good mood the last few minutes, even making semi-normal conversation while his blood flowed put of him. Now, even that little trace of happiness was gone, his eyes sad and in pain. While my hand was on his forehead to check for a fever, I asked what he was feeling. He told me the reason for his sadness, and I felt stupid for not thinking about it earlier.

\- What happened to Toothless?

Of course. Hiccup had described Toothless as his "best friend", and the last he had seen of the night fury was it in the middle of the monster's fire. In reality, I didn't know what had happened to Toothless either. To be honest, I had been kinda busy. Knowing if the night fury had survived hadn't been a priority.

\- He's fine.

The sadness on him disappeared, as he relaxed. The green eyes closed and his expression, though very much pained, was one of satisfaction.

\- Then I want to see him one last time. Bring him here so I can tell him goodbye.

His last will. Which meant that he thought he was about to die. And by consequence, get Stoick mad at me.

\- You can't die. Please. If you do, you're father is going to kill me!

Hiccup chuckled weakly. That sound tourned into a groan of pain as Gothi poured some not-exactly-appealing liquid over his leg.

\- Since when are you afraid of death?

\- There's a difference between gloriously dying in battle and an execution! One gives pride, the other shame.

\- Yeah, I bet it feels sooo different, especially afterwards...

\- Hiccup...

With what seemed to be great effort, he rolled his eyes.

\- Astrid, all I'm asking is for you to let me see Toothless one more time. And afterward, you can just escape with Stormfly if you have to.

Escaping? That was a thought that had never entered me. But it was true, I guessed. Berk didn't have anything that would stop me and Stormfly if we made a run for it. After debating for a moment, I gave in. I owed Hiccup that much.

\- Alright.

"Find Toothless and bring the night fury to Hiccup." After that, we would have to see. I exited the room, and looked for Stormfly. Doing so, my heart skipped a beat. Said dragon up in the sky, slowly but surely flying away from the island.

Really, it made sense. She wasn't happy about being kept grounded among vikings. She seemed to like me, but maybe that had faded once I intentionally took off her prosthetic. And so, seeing no real reason to stay, the nadder had decided to leave once given the chance.

\- Stormfly!!

But that was _not_ okay! I _liked_ her. I had wanted us to become close, like Hiccup and Toothless. Also, the prosthetic wasn't made to last forever. The contraption worked, but it was only attached with a few latches. A bad hit could easily open one or more of them, grounding the nadder. The contraption worked, _if_ someone with capable hands was there to fix it. Specifically, capable human hands.

And last but not least, Stormfly was my insurance. Hiccup was right. If all else failed, we could escape any non-friendly vikings by air. But right now, my insurance was flying away witouth me, leaving me stuck on the same island as the very angry Stoick.

\- Stormfly!! Please come back!

This time the nadder heard, and glanced at me. She looked... melancholic? It was hard to understand her expression from so far away.

\- Please! I'm sorry for grounding you before!

I waved my arms wildly. She slowed down her flight, hesitating. Eventually she turned back, letting me breathe out. I closed my eyes and walked forwards to hug the scaly head. I rubbed the hands on the hard and smooth scales for two seconds. Before Stormfly walked away again.

As I opened my eyes, I saw the nadder walking backwards, stopping me from touching her. I felt a pang of sadness. She didn't want me, or at least not enough to stay. My dragon proceeded to lick my face and fly off.

No, wait, that was wrong. She wasn't my dragon anymore.

I stood there, watching her beautiful wings getting further and further, unable to comprehend what had just happened. What was I to her? I had thought we had a bond. Sure, we had only known each other for four days, but so much had happened in that time. Four days had passed, and I didn't want to spend any more witouth her. But apparently, it wasn't the same for the nadder. For Stormfly, I was just another evil viking that made her fight and kept her grounded. I had been selfish and not cared for her needs, thus giving her no reason to stay.

Chirps and roars from the nadder brought me out of my self-depreciating thoughts. The _tone_ of these sounds struck. Gratifying , reassuring. She did like me. While she was leaving now, she would return eventually return. And when she did, I would be there. I would care for her needs witouth taking away her freedom. That thought kept a smile on my face as I made my way to find Toothless.

Two seconds later, that smile disappeared as I made the realization. There was a very big chance I wouldn't be alive by the time she got back. Hiccup's last will was to see Toothless. And for Stoick to have any chance to forgive me I would have to save the boy's life. If Hiccup died, that wouldn't be an option. Oh, and I wasn't even sure if Toothless was alive. To summarize, there were two ways this could play out.

One: Toothless had survived, and I would bring him to Hiccup. Once reunited, Hiccup would be satisfied and could let go of his painful life. I would be sent to the gallows, either for violence against the chief, causing the death of six villagers in the last raid or for one one of the many other times I had broken the rules.

Two: Toothless hadn't survived. Hiccup would be devastated, and would see no reason to live his painful life. I would be sent to the gallows, either for violence against the chief, causing the death of six villagers in the last raid or for one one of the many other times I had broken the rules.

By now, I had broken down on the base of a tree. I struggled to breathe and to hold in my tears. Gone. Everything would be gone. I wouldn't even get to Valhalla, as being hanged wasn't in _any_ way an honour. I was a failure. In a few minutes, Stoick would be here. He would spend as, much time as he could with his dying son, and when the inevitable happen, would turn towards me. I couldn't stop a whine from escaping me.

Okay Astrid, calm down.

Things looked bad. But there _had_ to be a way! It would be far too anticlimactic for me to just give up now, which meant there was at least one solution. I closed my eyes and focused, trying to find it.

A few minutes later, I entered Gothi's hut again, withouth the night fury. Stoick wasn't there yet, luckily. Convincing Hiccup would already be hard witouth having to avoid the chief's axe at the same time.

Speaking of Hiccup, I didn't have much time. He was pale as snow, his eyes squeezed shut by the pain. Whatever painkiller the healer had given him hadn't helped much. The only thing that was keeping him awake was the determination to see Toothless. And I was gonna use that.

\- Hiccup.

Hearing my voice, the boy gathered enough strength to open his eyes. Impatience could be heard in his surprisingly strong voice. Maybe he was using the last of his strength, as he didn't plan to need it anymore.

\- Good. Show me Toothless and then I can rest.

\- I'm not letting you see your best friend.

His face shifted from surprise to anger. After that he seemed to understand and his eyes turned to sadness.

\- Because he is gone. That's why I can't even see him, not even one more time. Is that what happened?

Alright. This was the moment. I had to play the next part just right. I walked in front of him, and pointed my finger at him like if it was a sword. And as I spoke, I fought to keep my voice firm and stern.

\- Let's get one thing straight. Toothless did _not _die, and you _will_ see him again...

I did not allow even a hint of doubt in my voice. In reality, this could be a lie. I didn't know it yet, as I hadn't gotten the time to walk to the crash site and back. But as long as Hiccup believed, reality didn't matter. I took a deep breath.

\- _If_ you survive. Live, and you won't see him _one_ more time, but millions. You'll reunite with Toothless once you get healthy. But giving your friend a final goodbye and enjoy Valhalla? That's cheating.

"And will get me killed", though I didn't say that last part out loud.

This started a long, awkward moment of silence. Hiccup's gaze shifted back and forwards, from the blood still exiting from his leg to the door and the world outside. It also locked on me quite a bit, moments in which I promptly gave an encouraging smile. In the end, he gritted his teeth and used a strenght I didn't know he had to raise a closed fist into the air, determined. His surprisingly muscular arm wasn't even shaking like the rest of his body,

\- You win. There's no way I can leave, not like this.

I almost screamed in happiness at that moment, but settled into doing so internally. I didn't manage to stop the probably embarrsing dance. Not that I cared for embarrassment anyway.

\- That's my Hiccup! I _knew_ Haddocks were stubborn to die!

\- But you're still an

I hugged his head, purposefully placing my arm in front of his mouth. Whatever flattering words Hiccup had intended to say were too muffled to understand.

\- Shhh, shhh, no need to thank me.

All in all, life wasn't so horrible. Sure, there had been suffering. Many noble sacrifices and many pointless deaths. But the war had ended. No more viking, or dragon, would die in raids from this moment. Stoick would (hopefully) forgive me, and I would reunite with Stormfly. I just hoped that Toothless was alive. Hiccup and his best friend deserved each other.

For all that display of strength, Hiccup he now fallen asleep. But it was the good kind of sleep, with regular breathing and relaxed muscles. His healing had only just begun, but he was already on the right track. And as I looked upon his sleeping form... I couldn't help myself. In a moment that Gothi was turned away, I swept down and gave the adorable boy a quick kiss on his lips. Nobody would ever have to know.

Then, to my horror, Hiccup's lips curled up.

My heart pounded loudly and my eyes widened in fear. He was awake! And even worse, I couldn't even make sure he kept quiet! I couldn't deal the necessary physical injuries when he was this fragile! I sighed. Hiccup surviving had just gotten a little less fun.

**This chapter was written from Astrid's POV.**

**A tiiiiny bit of Hiccstrid for all the needing hearts out there, I hope you'll appreciate. And yes I know I said "probably not" about things between the two. Well, probably is not certainly. ****Also, Toothless? Well, revealing the truth just didn't fit in this one. The answer will be shown in the epilogue. And hopefully, it won't take two weeks to write it. Last thing, what's going on with Stormfly? That is the part of this chapter I like the least. If you know any better way I could've written that, it's appreciated. Because this story is still prone to change if I find it would improve it. Goodbye.**


	29. Epilogue: Saumons

**This chapter is written in third person.**

Hiccup dried his sweaty forehead with the equally sweaty sleeve of his shirt after a laborious morning at the forge. He estimated another three, maybe two hours of work if he was fast enough. But he had to take a small break. Once, he had spent almost twelve hours working with no break. But by the end, a small oversight had caused a not-so-small fire that had forced him to stop. He had learned his lesson. No working your head into yaknog in a flammable environment.

As he entered the great hall, it was as lively as always. Though the topic of conversation had changed. Rather than debating hat was what dragon was the deadliest in a raid, people debated what dragon was the deadliest when you rode it into battle.

Ahh, vikings.

"Hiccup!" that was Tuffnut "Me and Ruff need have an idea, come here!". Hiccup winced, his happy mood spoiled. In general, anything involving the twins didn't make for good eating. But as the boy picked up his bowl of almost chicken, he couldn't help to remember how sometimes, between all the catastrophes, the two actually came up with some truly genius ideas.

The first day after the end of the war, Berk's cooks did their best to make the body of the downed monster into something the hungry Berkians could enjoy. But the reclutance in the Berkians into eating what was technically a dragon quickly became an issue. Even more so when parents refused to give it to their children claiming it was unholy.

Here, the Thorstons had saved the day. Desperate to feed his people, Stoick had followed the their advice and meat from the monster was officially renamed to "almost chicken". And for some, to Hiccup incomprehensible reason, no viking ever complained afterwards. And really, it was somewhat accurate. Though, in his opinion, "almost, but not quite, entirely unlike chicken" would've been a better fit.

And so, Hiccup sat down at the same table as the twins and listened, not wanting to discourage the two from finding new ways to solve problems. Now, building a large dam next to Berk to flood the village in case of fire _wasn't_ a good idea, but maybe their next suggestion would be. And as a bonus, the other teens were giving him thankful looks for keeping the twins' attention off them.

After that talk was over with, Hiccup's good mood quickly returned as the conversation shifted. His thought about a month ago, when he had believed to be on his deathbed. Much of that memory was painful, but there was a part he wanted to bring back.

"Astrid?", Hiccup asked. The blonde looked up from her plate. "Am I wrong or did you say 'You'll reunite with Toothless once you get healthy' after the battle?" he said with a chuckle. The girl rolled her eyes as she swallowed, before confronting the boy. She had been wrong and she knew it, but why did Hiccup have to keep bringing it up? "I didn't know that Toothelss would just rush into Gothi's hut after thirty minutes, okay?" she said with a half smile. Hiccup chuckled lightly. It wasn't everyday that Astrid admitted she had been wrong so openly. "I didn't even know he was alive".

That bothered Hiccup. If Astrid had had her way, Hiccup might have spent all those weeks in bed, longing to see Toothless, just to walk outside and discover that his ebony friend was long gone. But as things had played out, Hiccup had found the night fury. Or rather, the night fury had found Hiccup, soaked up the wounded boy in saliva, and stayed by his side as Hiccup struggled for dear life.

"And the prosthetic? Is it done?" That was Fishlegs. Hiccup sighed silently. "Which one?" For a moment, he had forgotten about the pain from the left leg. The pain that told him half of it was missing. But he didn't mind Fishlegs asking. It didn't hurt that someone cared.

In the days after the battle, it became clear that his wound was infected. It wasn't healing, and Hiccup kept getting weaker. If the cause was Stormfly's teeth, Toothless' slobber or something else was unknown. But the healer made it clear that an amputation was necessary if he was to survive. And so, after making sure the night fury wouldn't attack the of vikings that removed Hiccup's leg, the boy experienced the finest that viking medicine could offer. An axe fell down and cleanly cut the left leg just below the knee, stopping the infection from spreading.

Was it really necessary? Could Hiccup's immune system have fought off the the infection witouth sacrificing the leg? All of Berk's most prominent in medicine agreed that the answer was no. But it was possible that their lack of knowledge about the existence of such a system affected their judgement.

"Toothless' prosthetic is almost done. In the afternoon, I'll go flying again." Hiccup said, bubbling with anticipation, both for himself and for Toothless. The leather fin had been burned off in the battle. And between surviving, healing and relearning how to walk, he hadn't been able to build a new one and fly with his night fury. But now, he was a few hours away.

"Hey, I thought of something." said Snotlout. Hiccup pushed away his instinct to say 'I didn't know that was possible' and listened instead. Ever since Hiccup had shown that he had a night fury, his cousin had actually shown some respect. He didn't want to get on bad terms again. "You know how both Hiccup and Toothless are missing a piece?" the boy asked. "In a way, they are only complete when they're together.".

Not once in the last year had something even remotely deep come out of Snot's mouth. As such, this poetic statement left Hiccup and the others shocked. The embarrassingly long silence that followed was broken by Hiccup. "Wow that's deep. But why does it feel like someone else has already thought if that?"

Hiccup's motivation had never been higher, and the prosthetic fin was finished in just over two hours. The night fury helped too by readily providing fire and growling impatiently whenever his rider got too slow. But the boy didn't mind. For a human like Hiccup, flying was incredible. For a night fury like Toothless, it was life itself. After some final tests to make sure the new fin was strong enough, the two walked outside. They weren't in the air just yet, but their mood was already soaring.

To this day, Hiccup didn't understand how his best friend was stil alive. The last he had seen of the night fury was when the dragon dove in the clouds while engulfed in flames. And a moment later, the monster crashed violently in the same spot Toothless had been headed. No other viking could explain it either. When Fishlegs had arrived half a minute later, the night fury was already gone. Half an hour later, the night fury entered the healers hut, with bruises all over his body and a deep, bleeding cut in his back. For some reason, Hiccup had never seen Toothless happier than right there.

All that confusion hadn't bothered Toothless while he had treated his best friend. The dragon had licked the wound with his healing saliva and stayed with him all the way until he could walk. The night fury suspected that that day would have come a lot earlier if those "healers" had made a better work, but Hiccup trusted them, and so he did too. While patiently waiting for the prosthetic to be put on, the dragon's mind went to how his best friend still didn't truly understand him. In the last two and a half months, Toothless had learned a lot of the viking's language. But to comunicate back he had to use lots of body language that he was pretty sure looked ridiculous.

Maybe, in the future, Hiccup would learn his language. And when he did, Toothless would explain how he managed to survive the queen falling on top of him. The story of how the red death had crashed with her mouth open and left him stuck inside that mess of teeth and blood, believing that she would snap it shut at any moment. The story of how one of the teeth had been pushed into his back and almost killed him. And lastly, the story of how Toothless became the first to have a taste of the dragon that ate dragons.

All in all, Toothless had gotten quite a good story out of that day. He would make sure to tell that any interesting female dragon. Meatlug had sure been impressed.

"Hello? Earth to Toothless! Are you awake? We can go flying now!" The night fury shook itself out his daydreams and purred happily. He gave Hiccup a toothless grin as the boy climbed onto the saddle. Both of their faces turned upwards. Nothing could stop them now.

"Hiccup, Toothless..." Four emerald green eyes locked on Astrid, somewhat annoyed that she had interrupted them. Toothless could guess why she was here. Meatlug didn't want anyone but Fishlegs riding on her and Stormfly was still gone, leaving her rider stuck on the ground. And, maybe, Toothless theorized, there was something that she wanted with his rider. "C-Can I go flying with you?" She didn't manage to look at the two while she said so, her face red from embarrassment. Her normal method (threatening with an axe) wouldn't work because of the night fury, forcing the warrior to swallow her pride and actually ask.

"What do you think bud?", Hiccup asked in a neutral tone. Toothless understood the meaning behind the question. The one legged boy had seen the first meeting between Astrid and himself. And how that would've ended with his head detached from his body if Scarnose hadn't intervened. In short, Hiccup had asked _'what do you think of her bud?'_.

Toothless had done many raids. In some of them, he had killed vikings. Astrid had mistreated his human and tried to kill him. Now, could Toothless forgive her? Well, she had already made her apology in the form of Red Death meat she had brought in those long days where he waited for Hiccup to heal. Toothless would forgive her, _if_ she was nice to Hiccup. Which she might very be planning to do in this flight. With a snort, Toothless trotted towards the girl and offered her a place to sit on his neck, right behind Hiccup. But he gave a low growl to make sure she'd behave.

"I'll take that as a... yes?" Hiccup chuckled as he gave her his hand to help her climb. To his surprise, she took it, and the three took to the sky.

Hiccup hadn't operated the prosthetic for a month, and he wasn't used to his own peg leg. Toothless hadn't flown for a month, and he wasn't used to carry two people. Therefore, this was going to be a calm and gentle flight, Astrid assumed.

It took her six seconds to realize she had been wrong.

Eager to feel something in his wings, Toothless turned in tight circles as he climbed, pushing his muscles to their limits. He was happy Astrid had joined them, as more weight meant more fun. Hiccup snapped forwards with the pedal. The night fury responded, and after a barrel roll they were diving towards the ground. Astrid was forced to press her head into Hiccup's back to stop herself from screaming. Toothless had a lot of work to do to get back into shape, and he wanted to get a head start. This was going to be a long flight...

It wasn't just Toothless, Astrid And Hiccup who were flying. Meatlug and Fishlegs took off and raced them, which ended pretty much as you'd expect. Except for the hovering test. The night fury decided he would practice more on that. Those competitions, coupled with hair-raising manouvers and long streaks above the clouds made time fly by too. Before he knew it, Toothless cleared the clouds to be met with the crimson sky of sunset. He settled for a slow cruise, suspecting some interesting ineraction between the two teens on his back.

Astrid sighed in relief when Toothless stopped the tortuous manouvers. Throwing up on Hiccup and/or his best friend wasn't what she needed right now. But all in all, it had been _fun_. Asking to join had required all the humility she could muster, but it had been worth it. "Thank you", she said timidly. Hiccup smiled, "You convinced me to live. This was the least I could do"

Astrid hadn't expected that. Hiccup was a dorky, sarcastic boy, and now he talked about this? "But I didn't really help. You wanted to live from the moment you saw Toothless..." she muttered. It was nice that Hiccup appreciated, but she hadn't really done anything.

"But thanks to you, I wanted that even before seeing him. I didn't even know if he was alive" Hiccup said solemnly. "Letting you fly was the least I could do". All the serious talk was making Astrid nervous. She thought about the Hiccup she had threatened two months ago. How would he have reacted were they to fly like this? Maybe attempts at small talk, sarcasm or awkward jokes. And possibly tensed up from having her litterally behind his back. But this Hiccup showed none of that. "Plus, you didn't threaten me with an axe this time. _That_ alone makes you deserve a flight."

Okay, didn't show _most_ of that.

Astrid sighed. She had thought about doing exactly that. Using her axe to make sure Hiccup kept quiet about what had happened in Gothi's hut.

But in the end, she had decided against that. There was something, buried deep inside her mind, that kept objecting the standard viking procedures, and that something had grown stronger and stronger in the last time. And, so Astrid had made her choice. Violence would no longer be her first option. Loud shouting came from the village, pulling the three out of their thoughts. From where they were, it was barely audible, but it was there. A quick snap of the pedal and they were diving towards Berk.

Shouting from the village made Hiccup's blood freeze. In the past, it meant a dragon, which at the time meant death. After Hiccup had show off a dragon that didn't fit that definition, shouting had been restricted to raids. And that shout had preceded the two worst battles in his life. So no, Hiccup wasn't calm. His mind rushed back to those raids and came up with one awful scenario after the other. But that didn't make sense. The war was supposed to be over, wasn't it? As they arrived enough, the boy could understand the word that was shouted. "Saumons!"

Hiccup adrenaline filled mind spent a solid thirty seconds thinking about how to deal with a horde of raiding saumons with razor-sharp teeth. Then, in a small moment of clarity, he understood what was really happening and breathed out in relief. Saumon season was supposed to come any day now. And as the vikings had been forced to live on almost chicken for a month now, seeing the fish jump up Berk's river had caused a lot of excitement.

Toothless eagerly made his way to the nearest river and landed gracefully on the shore, where the two humans walked off. Hiccup looked at the night fury's eyes, who were wide in awe at the spectacle in front of them. Large, deep red fish jumping up the waves, seemingly endless in numbers. They would fail to clear a rock just to try again and again, all the while being easy to catch for dragons and vikings alike. Hiccup laughed cheerfully at his dragon. The night fury had crawled to his rider's feet, and was looking at him with his ears hanging and sad eyes. What a crybaby.

"Go ahead bud, you deserve it!" he said. His dragon didn't need to be told twice. In an elegant leap, Toothless crossed the river and grabbed one of the jumping saumons at the same time. He looked back at the two teens proudly as he swallowed the catch.

After a long, boring month of waiting, Berk woke up. Cheerful voices could be heard from the distance. Soon, the first berkians would appear on the scene, casting nets into the streams of water. Berk had made it yet another year. Hiccup and Astrid enjoyed dragon-cooked saumon in the few moments of privacy they had left. The sky darkened by the minute, and the two looked at it silently. At that point, Astrid gathered all the courage she had left. She wasn't going to get a better chance. "Do you remember anything from when you were at Gothi's hut? When we had just gotten there, I mean."

Hiccup thought about his options. Blackmail was certainly a possibility. But he had experienced it himself. He didn't want to make anyone else suffer the same. But still... he could have some fun. "No, I remember absolutely nothing about a kiss." He teased. " Plus, that could've been anyone..." This had the result of making Astrid's face redder than the saumons. But the message as clear. He would pretend not knowing anything for as long as she wanted. As the girl understood that, she relaxed just a little bit. "Thank you" she mumbled, not looking at him. Then she decided and looked at him in the eyes. "It means a lot", she added, louder this time.

She was happy she had managed this witouth violence. She and Hiccup had painstakingly built a friendship. She didn't want all of that gone just to make him keep a secret. A part of her hated that she had to keep this a secret at all. But with Stoick who still didn't like her, her general reputation on Berk, and the fact they weren't nowhere near betrothed (and barely friends when the kiss happened), it was necessary.

Hiccup took a moment to examine how his relationship with Astrid had changed. Before he met Toothless, the only interaction they had was either her tormenting him with the ohters or him fixing her axe. Right now, they were friends, and just maybe, on the start of something more. _If I change the world two or three more times she might even say that she likes me_, Hiccup thought. He just wondered how many limbs he'd have left by the end of that.

It was by now night, but that didn't stop the first fishermen from arriving to their stream and disturb. Hiccup looked at them in the dim light of their torches, frustrated at them ruining the moment. But Berk needed the fish, so he didn't complain.

Toothless moved himself closer to his rider, nervous croos coming from him as he did. Hiccup gave up any hope of going back to the stars and wondered what had happened to his dragon.. "What's the matter bud"?

When they were fighting the monster, Berk had relied heavily on it's dragons. But even then, they were only three. Now, even after a month of peace, that numbered had decreased to two, as Storfmly was still missing. And none of the dragons left was here by choice. A quick look revealed at least part of the problem.

The villagers were moving carefully, making sure to stay away from the trio. Suspicious eyes glanced at the night fury, just to turn swiftly away when either Hiccup or Astrid noticed them. The reason was transparent enough. Berk still didn't trust dragons.

"Well, it sure feels good that all that effort was for nothing", Hiccup said, more dissaponted than angry. After all, vikings were what they were. And that did not include the capability of dragon-loving. He mimicked Stoick's voice. "Oh, _of course_, we'll befriend dragons Hiccup! Just make sure they bow down to us and have absolutely no free will, and we'll get along absolutely fine!" His ranting made the girl and the night fury exchange a worried look. Hiccup was going back to before he had met Toothless, a scrawny viking that used sarcasm to endure a painful life. With Toothless, he had changed. That Hiccup _fought _to improve the world, and lead Berk to a better future.

"All I can say is that I'm sooo happy that I'm going to live all my life among brutes, who are incapable of change or OW! What was that for?!" Astrid pulled her arm away from his shoulder. It hadn't been a hard punch, but enough to get his attention. Toothless hadn't even gotten mad. She placed himself in front of his downcast eyes. "The world is not perfect. It never has been." She took a deep breath. "And it never will." Hiccup looked down at nothing in particular, his face unimpressed. "Great pep talk Astr"

"BUT that doesn't mean that it has to be awful. If we try, we _can_ change it for the better. And we will." This made Hiccup finally look up. He liked the idea, but a part of him still thought it was infeasible. "I sure am looking for trying to change the mind of a village of stubborn vikings", he mumbled, only partially sarcastic. He looked up at the sky, thinking that if he could do that with Astrid, that wouldn't be all that bad.

He hadn't even noticed what was happening until he felt a pair in lips on his own, just as warm and soft as that last time. And now that he _wasn't_ slowly bleeding to death, it felt even better. _Oh gods yes_, he thought. After ten beautiful seconds that felt like hours, she let go, leaving behind very started, but very happy Hiccup. "Remember. One of these stubborn vikings is me", she whispered.

The two looked around to see if anyone had noticed. But with quite a bit of luck, all the fishermen were finished and had begun walking home, leaving nets that would fill overnight. Hiccup sighed in relief. Maybe, in the future, they would not have to hide this anymore. But for now, It was for the best.

"Sooo... we transform Berk into a place where dragons can be happy?" he asked. "Yes" Astrid said "Somewhere where they can come and go as they please, _witouth _having their wings cut off" she added. "It will be hard to let the Vikings accept that, unless..." Hiccup mind wandered to a specific white and blue nadder. A wild dragon, with a visible scar on his nose, that showed he had reason in fearing vikings. If he could show peaceful interaction with that dragon in front of vikings... Soon, more and more problems came up from the three. Problems that they could, and would deal with.

"We have to change the other villages too."

"We need to find a way to survive if another famine arrives."

"Croo. Roo-oo-_oo._"

"I'm starting to worry about Stormfly. We should find her, at least to make sure she is fine."

Hiccup smiled. He had a lot of work ahead of him. "I'm sure all of this will go down smoothly." he said sarcastically. But this time, he had an advantage. Something that shooting down, and subsequently sparing Toothless had started all that time ago. This time, he was _not_ alone.

**The End.**

**Oh boy it's done. Oh, yeah, damn this feels good.**

**A few words.This was my first fanfiction, ever. In fact, it was also my first text that reached 60000 words. Or even 10000 words for that matter. What made me continue this story to the the very end, while I abandoned my other attempts after a few pages?**

**The answer is simple. You did.**

**I can't say that this is not the most popular fic ever. But I can say I wouldn't have done it witouth the 21 follows, 14 likes and very appreciated 18 reviews. So if you're one of them, thank you. I don't understand what you find in my story that made it worth reading, but I'm glad you did.**

**In practice, this was a 14 month long learning experience. I knew ~ 0 about writing before this fic. Now I know... maybe a little bit more. This is also the reason I wrote this in 3rd person. Practice on a new way of writing is useful.**

**So, what now? Apparently, life doesn't end just because your fic does, so I have to figure something out.**

**First of all, I'm gonna re-read all of it and fix it. It will only be minor tweaks, like grammar, POV and removing some vulgar language, but it should make this more pleasant to read. And then, I'll finnaly give this fic the mighty 'complete' tag.**

**Almost witouth knowing it, I accidentally opened up the possibility of a sequel. It could start with Hiccup and Astrid trying to find Stormfly, who's stuck somewhere because her prosthetic is broken and go from there. But I won't write it. Honestly, it feels like a sequel needs to continue something popular, and Operation Baldhead just isn't popular enough IMO.**

**But in the unlikely case that someone thinks that it's a good idea, you're more than welcome to write it. You're welcome to write however you want, as anything is better than nothing, and I'll link it here. But as I said, I don't believe this is likely to happen.**

**I'll keep writing. I'm going off to write newer, better stories. I've already come up with a few ideas, the first being a more lighthearted, post-THW comedy. **

**But. ****If I want to really write, I can't keep writing 65k words in14 months. My life is busy, and I can't expect it to get any calmer any time soon. So I'll have to get faster, and by a lot. And as a part of that, I'm making a new account. It is called ****TheHungryJackdaw and will help me write faster because it's, among other, on a computer with a much better keyboard than the tablet I'm using now. All my future fics will be posted there.**

**Well, I guess that's all? In that case... (timid little boy voice) Maybe just a little word of feedback on how I can improve? More seriously, if you made it all the way here, thank you.**

**Now, to finish, I'd like to give a quote from the... cinematical masterpiece... that is _Terminator 2: Judgment Day_****:**

**"Hasta la vista, baby."**


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